The EU plans to outline its strategy for reducing reliance on American and Asian technology, while promoting European digital solutions.
The proposals risk escalating tensions with the United States, which has strongly resisted the European Union's penalties and regulations in recent years aimed at American tech firms.
Over the past year, the bloc has intensified its initiatives to enhance domestic manufacturing in various industries and compete with rival firms in the United States and China.
EU technology chief Henna Virkkunen will present the new "technological sovereignty" initiative in Brussels, which encompasses fresh regulations on chips, cloud services, and AI.
The aim: to create digital ecosystems that secure Europe’s authority over services and data, while preventing foreign influence.
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Brussels is concerned that its vulnerable side has been revealed following last year's crises over chips and rare earths with China, along with fears that an irate President Donald Trump might eventually shut down US cloud computing using a "kill switch."
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According to a strategy draft obtained by AFP, the EU has indicated it depends on foreign suppliers for "more than 80 percent of its digital goods, services, infrastructure, and intellectual property," as per an official report from 2023.
The EU, however, emphasizes that the effort is focused not on excluding foreign providers but on bolstering European industry and maintaining its position in the AI competition.
US platforms largely dominate cloud computing, with the three largest—Microsoft's Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud—accounting for 70 percent of the European market.
A report by French consultancy Asteres predicts that the EU will spend 264 billion euros ($307 billion) each year on cloud software from the US by 2025.
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Brussels is anticipated to enforce sovereignty standards for public contracts in the AI and cloud industries, and aims to compel governments to conduct "sovereignty risk assessments" to pinpoint European providers when necessary.