European leaders seek ‘digital sovereignty' over tech infrastructure
June 21 (UPI) -- Leaders of many European nations say they need to do more to develop technological infrastructure to ensure digital sovereignty instead of relying on services from global tech firms.
A recent forum discussion on the market dominance of global corporations assessed the "blurring of the boundaries between economic and political control" among European nations by tech firms.
A consensus of attendees at the ongoing Berlin Summit 2025 agreed European nations need to coordinate their efforts to develop infrastructures to "avoid path dependencies and long-term dependence on global platform players," Forum New Economy reported on Friday.
"European countries are highly dependent on companies from the USA and China in a variety of technological infrastructures, from cloud services and social media to generative artificial intelligence," Forum New Economy reported.
Such companies dominate European markets and are increasing their control of digital infrastructures, innovation networks, supply chains, data flows and research agendas.
An example is Microsoft earlier this year suspending the business email account for International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan.
The action occurred within months of the ICC issuing a warrant for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Although the tech firm suspended Khan's ICC email account, Microsoft officials said it still is providing services for the ICC.
The company also announced their intent to support the digital sovereignty of European nations.
"We've operated in Europe for more than 40 years, and we have been and always will be a steadfast partner to Europe," Microsoft Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said in a social media post on Friday.
Microsoft is supporting European sovereignty and that of its respective nations with several existing and new tech offerings, Nadella said.
The services include Microsoft Sovereign Cloud, Data Guardian, External Key Management and Sovereign Private Cloud.
The existing and new offerings "bring digital sovereignty to all European organizations" and"unlock new sovereign ways to run private sovereign clouds," Nadella said.
"These new offerings build on decades of pioneering work in sovereign cloud solutions by ourselves and to our partners," he added.
Copyright 2025 UPI News Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
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