A US Tech Detox Offers a $264 Billion Opportunity for the EU
A US Tech Detox Offers a $264 Billion Opportunity for the EU
Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/7129296
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Europe's sovereignty cause isn’t just about hitting back or holding onto valuable data — it’s also a bid to shore up a moribund European economy. Consultancy firm Asteres estimates EU spending on US cloud services alone adds up to $264 billion per year. Diverting more of that cash to continental companies would strengthen Europe and reduce the geopolitical leverage wielded by the US. More government spending on domestic tech will also help the likes of Capgemini, according to Bloomberg Intelligence’s Tamlin Bason. EMEA government spending on IT will top $250 billion in 2028, reckons research firm Gartner.
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The problem is that past efforts at autonomy have failed miserably and only extended the US’s lead. Tech regulators have crafted many hammers against Big Tech over the years with the combined impact of a squeaky toy — neither 2016’s data-privacy rules nor 2024’s artificial-intelligence act have left any visible scars on the likes of Alphabet Inc. or Meta Platforms Inc. Politicians, meanwhile, have found it more expedient to pick winners than create viable homegrown tech ecosystems.
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With big European firms tempted to stick with the suppliers they know best, and domestic cloud companies like France’s OVH Groupe SA well behind dominant US rivals, the ultimate irony is that Big Tech is selling its own products as “sovereign” in Europe. Rather than allow their European cash-cow business to be regulated away, Amazon.com Inc. and others are simply adapting their EU operations to local requirements — segregated entities, locally staffed — and promising more jobs and investment in the process. EU-friendly software wrappers for US tech can even come with a double-digit mark-up, University of Amsterdam researcher Leevi Saari says. This is a troubling distortion of what sovereignty really is; it’s similar to Nvidia Corp.’s own pitch to help EU governments build data centers, including in Munich, which I’d call “sovereignty-as-a-service.”
The longer EU sovereignty remains a talking point rather than a genuine strategy, the more likely the continent will remain a tech-taker.
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New ideas should be tried. Entrepreneur Gilles Babinet suggests that, instead of conjuring up piecemeal copycat tech tools at taxpayers’ expense, Europe’s large public sector should set the rules of the game for interoperable, open-source software that would mount a genuine challenge to Big Tech. Nor should regulators blink when it comes to confronting the market power of the likes of Musk — as seen in Brazil, which banned X over threats to disobey a court order.
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