The European Commission this week officially announced the much-anticipated "European Technology Sovereignty Package", launching a series of new regulations to boost the local chip, artificial intelligence and cloud computing industries, aiming to reduce dependence on US technology and strengthen Europe's digital strategic autonomy.
At the heart of the plan are two legislative proposals: the Cloud and Artificial Intelligence Development Act and the Chip Act 2.0. According to the new regulations, the EU will establish a four-level cloud service "sovereignty" assessment standard. The public sector will be required to use service providers that meet strict standards when handling sensitive data such as medical, financial, and judicial data. The move directly targets the U.S. Cloud Act, which allows Washington to require U.S. companies to hand over data stored anywhere.
The "Chip Act 2.0" shifts the strategic focus from simply building factories to stimulating demand for local chips in Europe, and locks in the R&D and manufacturing of advanced processes below 3 nanometers. Data show that the EU currently accounts for less than 10% of global semiconductor production, more than 80% of digital products rely on external supply, and more than 260 billion euros flow to US cloud software providers every year.
The head of EU technology sovereignty bluntly said: "We want to ensure that no one holds the 'death switch' of European data." Although officials emphasized that this move is not to close the market, Amazon, Microsoft and Google still occupy about 70% of the EU's cloud market, but US technology industry lobby groups have criticized the policy as discriminatory and protectionist.
In addition, the plan also sets ambitious infrastructure goals: to triple the capacity of EU data centers in the next five to seven years to fully meet the computing power needs of European business and public administration. European Commission President von der Leyen said that we cannot rely on others to keep hospitals running, energy grids stable and services secure. Analysts believe that this marks the EU's shift from simply regulating technology giants to actively supporting local technology industries.