Study on key technologies: Europe's digital dependence is growing

dpa | Europe is increasingly falling behind the USA and China when it comes to key technologies. While the two global technology superpowers have been able to noticeably reduce their dependencies in recent years, Europe is now more dependent on foreign digital technologies than it was a good decade ago. This emerges from a comprehensive current comparative study by the Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies (CASSIS) at the University of Bonn in cooperation with the Vodafone Institute for Society and Communication.

For the study, the researchers developed the so-called Digital Dependence Index (DDI), which analyzes 51 industrialized and emerging countries over a 14-year period from 2010 to 2023. The index reflects dependence on a scale from 0 for complete independence to 1 for complete dependence in the four core areas of hardware trading, IT services, software platforms and technology patents.

Accordingly, the average digital dependence of European countries rose slightly by 0.5 percentage points to 0.69 between 2010 and 2023. During the same period, China managed to reduce its value by 10.8 percentage points to 0.43. The USA improved by 6.0 percentage points and, with a value of 0.38, maintains the top global position as the most autonomous digital nation.

Germany occupies 25th place in the global ranking with a DDI value of 0.73 and is therefore in the middle field, on a par with Austria and Thailand. Between 2010 and 2023, the Federal Republic's digital vulnerability increased by 2.4 percentage points, which, according to the authors, is primarily due to a growing dependence on software and IT services.

A mixed picture emerges for Germany: On the one hand, the German economy has the lowest dependence on information and communication technology patents of all the European countries examined. On the other hand, this European top position is far from sufficient in a global comparison, as the gap to the USA is 26 percent, to China 20 percent and to South Korea 12 percent.

Like almost all European partners, Germany is also almost entirely dependent on foreign providers for platforms such as operating systems, search engines and cloud services. Together with France, Italy and Great Britain, Germany belongs to the cluster of post-industrial countries that, although strong in industry and research, have significant gaps in platform ecosystems.

The overall European average shows a serious dichotomy: While Europe is comparatively moderate for services with a value of 0.42 and hardware with 0.59, when it comes to platforms with 0.98 and patents with 0.99, there is in fact an almost complete situation at the mercy of third countries.

At the same time, the scientists warn of a statistical distortion caused by the so-called Ireland effect. Ireland's seemingly excellent independence score of 0.40 is largely due to the fact that many large US corporations are based there for tax purposes. If you exclude Ireland, the European trade balance for digital services for the years 2022 to 2024 will tip from a surplus to a whopping deficit of around $350 billion.