Calls for European AI Sovereignty Rise

Calls to create a sovereign European artificial intelligence (AI) are increasing as Europe seeks to reduce its technological dependencies and as leading AI models continue to emerge in the United States and China.

Definition of AI Sovereignty

Dario Maisto, an analyst at Forrester, explained to AFP that "sovereignty means being independent from the jurisdictions and influences of foreign governments," adding that it should not be the case that a foreign government has the ultimate power to prevent European entities from accessing certain technologies, data, tasks, or infrastructures.

Example of Lack of AI Sovereignty

A concrete example of Europe's lack of AI sovereignty occurred in June when Washington, citing national security, compelled the American startup Anthropic to cut access for all foreign citizens to its most powerful models. The European Union regained access to this technology in September after several months of negotiations.

Europe's Technological Dependencies

Europe's technological dependencies span the value chain of artificial intelligence. China controls approximately 60% of the extraction of rare earths, necessary for the production of electronic components, and 90% of their refining, according to a report by the International Energy Agency.

Chip Manufacturing and Rare Earths

Additionally, the European Union produces less than 10% of the world's semiconductors, and none of the most advanced chips designed for artificial intelligence, called GPUs. These are designed and manufactured by American companies such as Nvidia or AMD, and Taiwanese companies such as TSMC.

Europe's Data Center Capacity

In terms of infrastructure, Europe currently hosts only 5% of the capacity of all data centers worldwide, while the United States has approximately 75%, and China 15%, detailed Andrea Renda, a research director at the CEPS think tank based in Brussels, to AFP.

Dominance of American and Chinese Cloud Services

American giants AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud share about 70% of the European cloud market. As for AI models, even though some European gems of AI exist, such as the French Mistral or the German Black Forest, the most advanced technologies are currently concentrated among a few American actors (OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, or Google DeepMind) and Chinese actors (DeepSeek), due to the colossal development costs they require, recalls a note from the Rexecode institute.

Efforts to Reduce Dependencies

To address these dependencies, Brussels has launched several investment programs in critical minerals and chips. Sylvain Duranton from the consulting firm BCG asserts that "there are places where you can do things, but we will not be able to create a kind of fortress where we will only use European technology."

Limitations of Total Sovereignty

Forrester experts in a report published in July agree that "total sovereignty remains out of reach, even for China and the United States," advising countries to strengthen their autonomy. Sovereignty consists of "having options, not being tied to a single supplier, especially foreign ones, limiting your ability to migrate" in case of a crisis, according to Dario Maisto.

Approach to Resilience and Autonomy

In this perspective of "resilience," many European companies use data platforms that give them access to American, Chinese, and European commercial models, from which they draw according to their needs, details Mr. Duranton. For the most sensitive uses, however, many companies and even governments prefer to install models on their own servers "to depend on no one," he continues.

Degrees of Sovereignty and Exporting Technology

It is therefore necessary to think in terms of "degrees of sovereignty" that vary according to industries, according to these two experts, with some, such as the military industry, requiring greater vigilance. Finally, it is also about Europe exporting its technologies. "It is by creating interdependencies that sovereign power is created," concludes Sylvain Duranton.