Digital Cooperation: The Strategic Response to Technological Dependence

TL;DR

The recent U.S. tariff policy has made it clear that Europe must confront a deep technological dependence on external actors, a strategic vulnerability that threatens its competitiveness, autonomy, and security. Responses that are solely national in scope and focused on pursuing an unrealistic notion of "digital sovereignty" appear insufficient to address the global nature of the market and the challenges in replicating tech giants. This document proposes "Digital Cooperation" as a key strategy: the active and non-subordinate construction of operational alliances with international partners committed to overcoming technological dependence, accompanied by essential internal efforts for reinforcement (such as the single market, skills development, interoperable infrastructures, and multi-level governance). Through coordinated investments, development of shared infrastructures, open standards, and targeted collaboration in R&D and security, Digital Cooperation offers the most realistic and powerful path for Europe to mitigate risks, achieve the necessary scale, pursue technological self-determination, and govern digital transformation based on a strategic autonomy built through governed interdependence.

This article has been developed in the context of work carried out by ForumDD on the development of European digital public infrastructures. The information and views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of European institutions.

Italian version of this article

Introduction

The contemporary digital landscape is characterized by a marked asymmetry of technological power. A few US giants and, increasingly, Chinese ones, dominate crucial sectors of the technology market such as cloud computing, semiconductors, and artificial intelligence. This concentration of innovative and infrastructural capabilities exposes other regions, primarily Europe, to increasing technological dependence, with significant implications for sovereignty, economic resilience, and strategic autonomy. In an increasingly fragmented global context, characterized by geopolitical tensions and technological competition, the opportunity to cooperate emerges not only as a necessity but as a fundamental strategic lever to mitigate technological dependence.

The European aspiration to achieve "digital sovereignty," aimed at reducing vulnerabilities related to external technological dependence, seems to be a central political objective. However, this ambition clashes with the stark diagnosis outlined in Mario Draghi's recent report on European competitiveness. The analysis highlights how structural weaknesses and chronic underinvestment are hindering the Union's overall competitiveness, while undermining the effectiveness of its digital strategy. The report documents Europe's progressive economic and geopolitical decline compared to global giants such as the United States and China, attributing it to two critical interconnected factors: insufficient coordination among Member States and at the EU level (especially in industrial and digital policies) and excessive fragmentation that penalizes research, access to capital, and the coherent application of regulations. These two elements, the report concludes, feed each other, trapping Europe in a vicious cycle that limits its ability to act effectively in strategic sectors for the future.

This drive towards autonomy, therefore, is confronted not only with the complexity of the global technological landscape but also with these internal weaknesses, imposing a reflection on fundamental questions: What is the real meaning of the concept of digital sovereignty today? How can the objective of digital sovereignty be reconciled with the reality of intrinsically global technological value chains and with European structural limitations? Finally, what are the timeframes for a possible rebalancing of technological equilibria on a global scale?

Addressing these questions requires rigor and careful analysis. In the following pages, we will attempt to offer only starting points and partial answers, with the intention of contributing to a more informed debate. Too often, in fact, the discussion on digital sovereignty is diverted by political instrumentalizations, which misleadingly present it as a mere re-proposition of logics inspired by nationalism and protectionism, ignoring its real strategic and technological implications.

Digital Sovereignty and Technological Autonomy

Sovereignty is a widely recognized concept. The theory underlying it has been the subject of discussion and development in political science and international relations for centuries. From this in-depth reflection emerges a widely shared definition: sovereignty implies that the State exercises supreme and exclusive authority within the national territory, without being subordinate to internal competitors or unwanted external influences.

When "digital" is added to sovereignty, the issue becomes considerably more complex. The territorial control and exclusivity typical of political sovereignty cannot be easily transferred to the global virtual space created by the Internet. The Internet consists of digital infrastructures, protocols, and software over which it is not always possible to exercise exclusive authority. An emblematic example is the difficulty of obscuring a platform or a website that, while accessible on the Internet in a given country, are hosted on infrastructures located in other countries.

The concept of digital sovereignty, which extends the traditional notion of political sovereignty to the virtual domain, therefore clashes with the complex reality of an intrinsically global and interconnected cyberspace. Unlike physical borders, which are clearly demarcated, the Internet is inherently configured as a fluid and shared environment, where data flows constantly across national jurisdictions. And it is precisely this fluidity that calls into question the very possibility of defining a virtual "territory" over which a State can exercise exclusive control.

The illusion of unilateral control is further weakened by the dependence of critical digital infrastructures on global actors, as evidenced by the centrality of a few technology companies, predominantly U.S, in the digital landscape.
In the European context, the concept of digital sovereignty faces a further problem: the reality of the 27 Member States, where political sovereignty is already frequently fragmented due to the shared competences and responsibilities between the various levels of national and Community government.

It therefore becomes more useful to combine the concept of digital sovereignty with that of technological autonomy, understood as the capacity of a state or a political entity to produce, own, and control strategic digital resources and services, especially those that impact critical infrastructures and society. This meaning allows us to realistically highlight the risks (including geopolitical ones) connected to excessive technological dependence on external suppliers, without, however, falling into the illusion of pursuing technological autarky, which is today completely unrealistic and counterproductive.

A Concrete Example of Dependence: Cloud Computing

To concretely understand the challenges to technological autonomy and the risks of dependence, it is illuminating to analyze the structure of the cloud computing market. It can be easily seen how this crucial sector perfectly exemplifies the concentration of technological power and the vulnerabilities that derive from it. It is dominated, in fact, by a few global giants, known as "hyperscalers," among which Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Alibaba Cloud stand out, controlling the majority of the world market.
These actors offer an extremely broad and integrated portfolio of services, from basic infrastructure to software and artificial intelligence. Their global operational scale, enormous economies of scale, and continuous innovation create significant barriers to entry into the Cloud Computing market, making it extremely difficult for new companies, especially European ones, to compete effectively in this sector.
This market dynamic generates a profound technological dependence for Europe.

The widespread adoption of Cloud Computing, while offering enormous advantages, therefore presents direct challenges to the ability to govern its own digital space and maintain decision-making autonomy, especially for critical infrastructures. The main risks include:

• Dependence on Foreign Suppliers: Creates a technological, contractual, and legal dependence, exposing to conditions and regulations (e.g., access to data by foreign governments) potentially conflicting with European interests.
• Control over Data Localization: Even with data in Europe, management by non-EU entities raises complex legal issues and risks of extraterritorial access.
• Technological and Skills Gap: Excessive dependence can disincentivize the development of a local technological ecosystem and skills, perpetuating the existing gap.

The impact of these risk factors on critical infrastructures is particularly relevant. A compromise in strategic sectors can have serious consequences for national security, the economy, and citizens. The risk of widespread blackouts caused by problems at a large cloud provider that manages vital systems for the electricity grid, for example, is, unfortunately, not a remote hypothesis.

The Italian Model and the "Cloud Italia Strategy"

Many European states, unable to forgo the use of Cloud Computing technology in the organization and provision of public services, are seeking solutions to the problems identified above. Italy, for example, to address these needs, has adopted a concrete approach with the "Cloud Italia Strategy," aimed at guiding the migration of the Public Administration to the cloud, mitigating the risks of this important innovation. The cornerstone is the classification of data and services (strategic, critical, ordinary), which determines the usable infrastructure:

• Strategic Data and Services: Destined for the National Strategic Hub (Polo Strategico Nazionale - PSN), a dedicated infrastructural environment with high security, resilience, and national control. The PSN can integrate, within it and under its own governance, advanced technologies from selected hyperscalers (operating in secure mode, e.g., "air-gapped"), balancing control and access to innovation.
• Critical Data and Services: Require qualified Cloud Service Providers with stringent additional requirements (enhanced security and resilience) and the mandatory use of advanced encryption (e.g., client-side, BYOK/HYOK/CYOK) to prevent access to clear data even by the provider itself.
• Ordinary Data and Services: Can use any qualified Cloud Service Provider (including international ones) that meets the basic requirements, promoting a broader market.

This strategy pursues a dual objective: to guarantee the localization of data in Europe (both for the PSN, located in Italy, and for qualified hyperscalers operating in the EU) and to find a flexible balance between the control exercised over the core of strategic data and services through the PSN and the access to innovation offered by qualified hyperscalers for critical and ordinary data and services, albeit under stringent conditions. It thus configures itself as a concrete attempt to strengthen technological autonomy and mitigate dependence, without, however, falling into isolation.

However, although the intent is correct, the effectiveness of such an approach is inherently limited if it is not part of a broader European dimension. The challenges posed by the concentration of the cloud market and the need to compete or negotiate with actors of global scale require responses at least on a continental scale. An action relegated to national borders alone, however well-structured, does not have the strength and resources necessary to influence global technological balances. The real game for technological autonomy is therefore played at the European level.

Towards Digital Cooperation

The intrinsic limitations of a national approach therefore require us to raise our sights and consider a European strategy based on a different principle: no longer just digital sovereignty and the tentative to replicate hyperscalers, but Digital Cooperation.

Europe finds itself at a critical crossroads. As highlighted by the report on European competitiveness edited by Mario Draghi, the continent is trapped in a vicious cycle: insufficient coordination (especially in industrial and digital policies) and excessive fragmentation (in research, access to capital, application of regulations) feed each other. This dynamic undermines Europe's capacity for action and makes our profound technological dependence on external actors no longer sustainable.

This dependence is pervasive: it does not only concern software and smartphones, where it is easy to observe that we communicate almost exclusively on US platforms using Chinese hardware, but extends to the critical infrastructures that support our societies. Addressing this situation by trying to internally replicate the global "hyperscaler" giants is a titanic undertaking. It is comparable, to use a metaphor by Bert Hubert, to wanting to recreate from scratch both the production efficiency of IKEA and the high technology of Airbus. A task made even more arduous precisely by the fragmentation of the European market and the chronic deficit of large-scale investments. Consequently, we must abandon the path of a "simplistic" response oriented towards pursuing a national or even European "digital sovereignty," because even if transposed to the supranational level (of the EU, precisely), if understood as autarchic isolation, it risks proving ineffective.

While ambitious projects struggle to take off or get lost in definitions of standards without producing concrete alternatives (such as Gaia-X), a paradigm shift is needed.

To understand the scope of the challenge, it is useful to recall some of Manuel Castells' examples in "The Rise of the Network Society" on different strategies of technological development. Castells highlights how nations like Japan have historically pursued a model based on the Developmental State to acquire and improve existing technologies by integrating them into the global system, while China has employed a more massive and state-led approach to build national scale and aim for the technological "leap." None of these models is directly transferable to Europe, but the comparison serves to emphasize the enormous state commitment, long-term vision, and scale of investments that purely nationally focused strategies would require, a huge dimensional challenge for current Europe.
It is precisely by recognizing these limits that the strategic necessity of Digital Cooperation emerges.

Inspired by concepts such as "digital solidarity" proposed by Pablo Chavez, this strategy proposes a third way for Europe: instead of attempting an improbable isolated self-sufficiency or a Chinese-style state dirigisme, it is about building structured operational alliances with partner nations that share the same ambitions and believe in a multipolar vision. This strategy does not replace but complements the indispensable internal efforts to strengthen the single market, skills, and security.

Faced with the immense scale of hyperscalers and the need for colossal investments, cooperation with trusted partners is the most concrete way to reach the necessary critical mass. It allows for sharing costs and risks in the development of infrastructures, in advanced research (AI, quantum, space), and in the creation of concrete alternatives.

Instead of getting lost in endless standardizations, Digital Cooperation can focus on concrete and shared objectives: co-financing and developing specific competitive open-source solutions, creating interoperable data spaces based on common rules, or establishing coordinated regulatory frameworks (such as those required by cybersecurity regulations, e.g., NIS2/CRA) for the security of critical infrastructures managed via the cloud, even if provided by companies from partner countries.

Europe can bring its strengths to these alliances: a vast pool of talent, an advanced industrial ecosystem in specific sectors, and a strong emphasis on privacy, ethics, and reliability, helping to shape a global digital future based on the values of open societies.

Conditions for Effective Digital Cooperation

More concretely, the success of Digital Cooperation, in addition to the necessary and substantial funding, will require the definition of clear conditions and mutual commitments among the participating countries. It will be essential to establish a shared level playing field, ensuring fair competition and market access rules for the companies of all parties involved. To accelerate catching up, the strategy should also actively promote the formation of transnational joint ventures, structured to facilitate effective two-way technology transfer. Finally, targeted public participation should be foreseen and incentivized, where strategically appropriate, for example through state or European co-financing, support for collaborative research projects, or the involvement of public bodies in initiatives of particular relevance for collective technological autonomy.

Furthermore, to initiate Digital Cooperation, a pragmatic approach could consist of focusing initial efforts on technological areas where Europe already possesses solid skills or where the gap with global leaders is less pronounced, thus allowing for a more rapid affirmation of European technological solutions in a collaborative context. A particularly fertile ground for this initial phase is represented by Digital Public Infrastructures (DPIs). In particular, collaboration with international partners could focus on the development and adoption of interoperable infrastructural components, on the one hand, for digital identity, leveraging initiatives such as the European Digital Identity Wallet framework, and, on the other hand, for digital payment systems to break free from credit card schemes, capitalizing on existing European regulations and innovations. In these areas, collaboration with Third Countries such as India and Brazil, which in recent years have developed digital payment solutions (UPI and PIX) independent of credit card schemes, could be of interest.

Moreover, Europe has already demonstrated technological excellence in specific sectors through targeted investments and collaboration, as in the successful examples of CERN, ASML, Airbus, and Galileo. These successes demonstrate Europe's ability to compete globally when focusing on defined strategic areas and promoting cooperation. Digital Cooperation allows for mitigating dependence on non-aligned actors, diversifying towards strategic partners, building more resilient technological supply chains, and strengthening collective cybersecurity.

In conclusion, the challenge of technological dependence requires a radical change in approach to the problem. Digital Cooperation, understood as the active construction of technological alliances between countries and informed by historical lessons, represents the most realistic and powerful strategy available to Europe. It is not a renunciation of autonomy, but the most effective way to achieve it in an interconnected and competitive world, combining internal strengthening with the strength derived from collaboration with trusted partners. It is an imperative dictated not only by economic competitiveness, but by the very strategic security of the old continent.