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Europe must act quickly to avoid leaving the increasingly important digital sphere to the USA and China in the future.
This is stated by Germany’s Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, on Tuesday at a summit on digital sovereignty, which he is hosting in Berlin.
“The questions of the future will largely be decided in the digital sphere,” says Merz.
The two digital superpowers, the USA and China, are competing for technological leadership, he further states according to Reuters.
“Europe must not leave this area to them,” he emphasizes, adding that the dependency EU countries have on IT infrastructure from the USA and China is used for “power politics.”
France’s President, Emmanuel Macron, who was also present at the summit in Berlin, emphasizes that Europe should not be dependent on American and Chinese tech companies while the EU tries to catch up in the AI race.
“Europe does not want to be a customer of the big contractors or the big solutions that come either from the USA or from China – we clearly want to develop our own solutions,” says Macron.
In Danish Industry (DI), there is agreement with Chancellor Merz that it is urgent to develop our own solutions.
“He sends a strong signal with his statements that Europe takes digital sovereignty seriously at the highest level, and that is urgently needed,” says Andreas Holbak Espersen, director of DI Digital, in a written comment.
We must invest massively in future technologies such as AI, cloud, and cybersecurity and create a digital internal market where innovation thrives, and companies can scale.”
Today, EU countries import the vast majority of their digital infrastructure from abroad.
This shows that Europe has not invested enough in developing its own solutions and has not created the right conditions for digital innovation to succeed, according to DI.
“It is no use believing that we can just drop the solutions from the American tech giants overnight. That is completely unrealistic and a waste of time,” says Andreas Holbak Espersen.