Europe’s cloud dependency is a political risk, not just a technical one
Europe’s external dependency exposes more than its AI sovereignty. It also affects its data sovereignty and creates political exposure.
In a previous article, we discussed how Europe is heavily dependent on external providers for AI development, particularly through GPUaaS and the semiconductor industry.
US companies such as Nvidia and AMD provide the GPU chips powering European supercomputers and AI factories, while hyperscalers dominate access to cloud infrastructure.
Beyond the technical and economic implications, this dependency exposes Europe’s data infrastructure to geopolitical risk. More importantly, it exposes Europe to foreign political power, and increasingly, to political volatility.
Structural reality
The EU remains structurally dependent on external providers. Despite major investments and policy initiatives aimed at strengthening European AI sovereignty, US hyperscalers Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) control 70% of the European cloud market by early 2026.
At the semiconductor level, Europe also remains...
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