The entanglement of technology and politics is now impossible to ignore, especially in the United States, where the boundaries between Silicon Valley and Washington are beginning to disappear.
At President Trump’s inauguration , the CEOs of Amazon, Meta and Alphabet were prominently featured – ahead of even his Cabinet nominees – a clear sign of how closely American companies have become tied to national political agendas.
No, this is not just symbolism. It reflects a broader shift: American tech companies are aligning with a domestic industrial strategy that treats the cloud, artificial intelligence, and digital infrastructure as tools of geopolitical power.
For Europe, the implications are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
France's Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development warned of digital "predators" undermining European autonomy.
These are not isolated incidents. They mark the early stages of a digital sovereignty movement, one driven by pragmatism as well as politics.
For Europe, regaining control of digital infrastructure is no longer a fringe idea. It is a strategic imperative.
Europe’s dependence on foreign super-investors is deep and long-standing. The majority of government services, healthcare systems and private sector infrastructure run on platforms controlled by Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google.
This addiction has become so entrenched that it has gone unnoticed, until now.
Consider the US CLOUD Act, which gives US authorities the right to access data stored on US-owned servers, even if that data is located in Europe.
For EU citizens and businesses, this creates a fundamental contradiction: their data is simultaneously subject to local privacy laws, such as the GDPR, but also to foreign surveillance laws.
Cloud infrastructure is critical, and control by different jurisdictions and different interests kills privacy.
Somewhere here we should look for a shift towards digital self-determination – a shift that recognizes sovereignty as a foundation for resilience. For too long, Europe’s digital future has been outsourced.
So now we should understand that true independence requires ownership of the cloud, from its infrastructure and identity to ownership of the data and applications.
Although the press releases will range from very select to rare, I said I'd pass...because sometimes the editors hide.
