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AI, cloud and open source: The EU is looking for digital sovereignty
The EU wants more digital sovereignty. But instead of developing its own high-performance AI models, the EU Commission is now focusing on industrial applications. Plans for sovereign clouds remain
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The EU wants more digital sovereignty. But instead of developing its own high-performance AI models, the EU Commission is now focusing on industrial applications. When it comes to plans for sovereign clouds, the door remains open for US corporations and open source would need more commitment. An overview.
The federal government is hosting the digital summit in Berlin today and tomorrow. While last year's title was about digital sovereignty, this time it's all about artificial intelligence. Samehttps://bmds.bund.de/aktuelles/digital-gipfel/programm">imfirst panel of opening dayThe question was how “Europe’s digital regulations can be made future-proof”. But where is the EU heading when it comes to AI, cloud and open source?
In June, the EU Commission presented its “https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_26_1188">Sovereignentity package". This contains onehttps://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/de/policies/open-source-strategy">...as well as two laws: the Chips Act 2 to promote the European semiconductor industry and thehttps://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/proposal-cloud-and-ai-d...Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA)including a definition of a sovereign cloud.
Should Europe join the AI race?
The Commission stated that it wants to triple the computing capacity in the EU by 2035 in order to make Europe more independent in the areas of cloud and AI. For this purpose, the CADA is intended to simplify the construction of data centers, including through accelerated approvals and easier investments. However, the draft law does not restrict who can build these data centers. Some therefore criticize that the CADA would further consolidate the market position of already established players - large US companies - instead of strengthening alternative providers. This is how the European Pirate Party, for example, expresses itselfhttps://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiative...Statement on CADA. The law still needs to be negotiated; the member states in the Council and Parliament are currently working on their positions.
In addition, the Commission is pushing forward another initiative together with the EU countries: The AI gigafactories were announced in February 2025 and describe very large data centers that are intended to enable the development of particularly powerful AI models, so-called frontier models. “The race for AI leadership is far from over,”https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/api/files/document/print/en/...ate it back then.
But a change of course recently took place, although the tender for the Giga data centers is still ongoing. The EU Commission's special representative for industrial AI, Jim Hagemann Snabe, pleaded according to onehttps://www.politico.eu/article/eu-artificial-intelligence-adviser-ai-ec...from Politicofor Europe to spend less energy developing its own frontier models in competition with the USA and China. Instead, the EU should focus on using AI in the European economy and industry and thereby increase productivity.
Shortly afterwards, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen confirmed the vision of the special representative, who is also CEO of Siemens. At hershttps://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/api/files/document/print/en/...on the State of the Union on September 16thWith regard to AI, she said that Europe needs its own computing capacity, especially to protect national security. However, “the next stage of the race” is no longer just about the advanced models: “We don’t have to be the ones developing the frontier technology to be the ones getting the most value from it.” Rather, the key lies in bringing AI “into the real economy and society”. This is where the real value of AI lies and where Europe has great advantages. By this she means high-quality data that can be used to create “tailor-made industrial AI models”.
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Strengthen European cloud providers
In addition to AI, the Commission continues to view cloud technology as central to digital sovereignty. According to onehttps://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/de/document/ECTI_STU%282025%297...of the EU ParliamentThe three US hyperscalers AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud hold around 70 percent of the EU market. The proportion of European providers has therefore fallen to 13 percent. The Commission sees public procurement as a way to change this by demanding more European solutions.
When the Commission tendered cloud services for its own use a year ago, it developed eight sovereignty criteria. In April, she commissioned four consortia with predominantly European providers and was convinced by the quality and prices of the services. Other public bodies should follow suit. Based on the criteria of the tender, the Commission described in CADA ahttps://netzpolitik.org/2026/cloud-and-ai-development-act-eu-commission-...Definition of sovereign cloudwith numerous requirements, such as the location of the data and control over the infrastructure. For less sensitive data, a level 1 cloud that only has to meet a few sovereignty criteria should be sufficient. The highest level would apply to particularly security-relevant data, which completely excludes non-European providers.
However, through various loopholes, US hyperscalers could even be approved for the third level of sovereignty. These could be collaborations through joint ventures like the Delos Cloud in Germany, which is based on Microsoft products. Or individual countries could be recognized as trustworthy. According to the Commission's estimates, levels one to three would cover 99 percent of cloud use cases in the public sector.
The power is not with the commission
However, the member states should decide independently whether they need a higher degree of sovereignty. If the national governments and procuring authorities do not want to leave the familiar hyperscaler environment - which is quite difficult - the Commission's will could probably not change that. And of course the tier system is likely to be changed in the upcoming negotiations anyway. The question also comes into play here: how willing governments are to possibly antagonize Trump if US companies are excluded.
For these reasons, many doubt that the CADA classification will bring the desired added value to the European cloud market.
At the same time, the Commission is taking another approach. This November, Brussels is expected to designate hyperscalers AWS and Azure as gatekeepers under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The process for this started a year ago. Before the summer, the commission came to the preliminary conclusion that both companies could meet the requirements for such a classification. It is questionable whether the cloud market can actually be effectively regulated with the DMA. However, the European cloud industry is still eagerly awaiting the decision and hopes that it will make competition for European providers a little fairer.
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What role does open source play?
"If Europe wants to be sovereign, there is little choice but to use open source to catch up. The cost of starting over is simply too high," senior Commission official Thibaut Kleiner said at a meetinghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG-_mKEQfCk">Eventfrom Politicoin Brussels two weeks ago. In the General Directorate of Connect, as Director for “Future Networks”, he is also responsible for cloud computing. With his statement he refers to the fact that Europe already has a large open source ecosystem. All that is needed is more mergers to achieve an internal market.
The authority wants to make its contribution to this with the open source strategy, which the Commission presented together with CADA in June. In the community she becamehttps://netzpolitik.org/2026/neue-toene-aus-bruessel-open-source-soll-eu...well received, also because the Commission officially gives open source a high priority. The biggest point of criticism is the lack of commitment.
Here too, the decisive lever ultimately lies with the individual states and their authorities. The five countries Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy and Luxembourg are involved in the Consortium for a European Digital Infrastructure (EDIC), thereby showing that they believe in the relevance of the open source ecosystem for digital sovereignty. It is not yet clear whether this position will also be reflected in the CADA negotiations.
In a firsthttps://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/tte/2026/06/09/">Debatethe European digital ministersShortly after the sovereignty package was published in June, open source was mentioned among many other points. Just likehttps://netzpolitik.org/2026/gefaehrliche-abhaengigkeiten-eu-parlament-m...a report, in which the EU Parliament put forward demands for digital sovereignty a year ago.
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