Remarks by Executive Vice-President Virkkunen and Commissioner Jørgensen on the tech sovereignty package

Executive Vice-President Virkkunen

When I came into my role as Executive Vice President of the European Commission, one of my main missions was to secure Europe's technological sovereignty.

Let me start with an important point: what do we mean by technological sovereignty?

Technological sovereignty does not mean protectionism. Europe remains grounded in openness, partnership, and fair competition.

At the same time, Europe wants to be in the position to make its own choices, avoiding dependence on single dominant suppliers, especially from non-like-minded countries.

Because we live in a world where geopolitics and technology go hand in hand. Those who champion technological innovation will shape the future - and we must ensure that Europe plays a leading role in this.

How does our current situation look like: Today, we simply rely on non-EU providers for over 80% of our digital products, services and infrastructure.

This is a huge problem for Europe's security of supply – but it also has a massive impact on our economies.  

And we did not end up in this situation overnight. It is the result of decades of decisions: 

• Borrowing more than building; 
• Adopting faster than developing;
• Consuming more than creating. 

This has to change.

This is why today I am pleased to announce a technological sovereignty package for Europe.

This is a crucial step to position ourselves for the future of digital technologies.

And good news, Europe has all it takes to shift its posture: we have our talents, we have our industrial base, we have our internal market.

Today's package has three fundamental objectives:

• To transform our economy by driving the adoption of new technologies and AI;
• To reinforce the resilience of our supply chains;
• To promote the European way for tech sovereignty.

These will be achieved through four crucial elements in our tech sovereignty package: 

• The Chips Act 2.0; 
• The Cloud and AI Development Act; 
• An EU Open Source Strategy; 
• And a Strategic Roadmap for Digitalisation and AI in Energy, which Commissioner Jorgensen will present shortly.

Chips 2.0

Let´s start with chips, essential component of all our digital products, and the third most traded commodity in the world.

We made great progress with the first Chips Act:

• €52 billion in concrete investments;  
• 5 pilot lines to bridge the lab to fab gap; 
• A network of competence centres across all our Member States and Norway. 

But the landscape has now shifted. We need to be ready to take our share of the AI-related chip market.

AI-related components are predicted to make up over 70 percent of the total semiconductor market by 2030. 

The Chips Act 2.0 will stimulate demand, consolidate supply chains and limit administrative burdens.

How?

• Improving faster permitting procedures and enhance international cooperation;
• Boosting demand for European chips by nurturing Europe's chip design ecosystem;
• Reinforcing supply-side capabilities across the entire value chain; and
• By monitoring and addressing structural vulnerabilities in the supply chain.

Cloud and AI Development Act 

For Europe to become an AI continent, we need to make sure we have the infrastructure to meet growing demand.

In our AI Continent action plan, we made this clear, promising to triple sustainable data centre capacity in Europe in the next 5-7 years.

The Cloud and AI Development Act is delivering on this promise.

Cloud and AI are key for Europe's competitiveness and they are essential for our everyday life: using a smartphone without a data center is like putting it on airplane mode. 

The Act focuses on three objectives:

• Research, development and innovation; 
• Sustainable Capacity building; and 
• Sovereignty.

We want to make sure that our most critical, sensitive data is stored in Europe.

With CADA, we introduce a four-level framework for the public sector. It will allow cloud and AI services to demonstrate their level of sovereignty against clear criteria, including infrastructure location, software supply chain control and cyber security.

The recent success of the Commission´s 180 million tender for sovereign cloud services shows that reliable European providers can deliver such services. 

Open Source 

Moving on to third building block, the Open Source Strategy.

In Europe we have huge potential in this area: 

• 3 million open source contributors; 
• 500 for-profit open source companies. 

Yet, every year we spend around €264 billion on non-EU, proprietary digital products and services. 

It is time we harness what we have in Europe to give us control over our digital future. 

This is the objective EU Open Source Strategy aims to do.

And in doing so, it will strengthen the autonomy of users, companies and public administrations. 

But of course, all of the initiatives I just presented require investments.

Finance

Right now, Europe is falling behind because we need more high-risk tech investments. While our global competitors are pouring massive amounts of cash into the sector, Europe is facing a critical investment gap.

Public funding is a good start, but taxpayers cannot foot this bill alone. If we want technological sovereignty, if we want to control our own digital destiny - we urgently need private capital to step up and fund our largest, most strategic projects.

To bridge this gap the Commission is launching an immediate consultation with Member States, the EIB Group, and key financial stakeholders.

Our goal is clear: to build a European equity capacity at scale to ensure our best tech companies get the funding they need to compete and win on the global stage.

Our plan for tech sovereignty is of course not complete without talking about energy.

Before giving the floor to Dan to walk you through the sustainable energy required for digital, let me conclude with the following:

We are living a defining moment for Europe. 

This package is a foundation for our future.

A future where our factories can run on European industrial software, where our hospitals are free to choose AI developed in Europe, where our innovators can use European software to develop ideas, and our startups can grow into global champions – right here in Europe.

This is not just a fantasy; it is a choice. And it is a choice we must make now, together.

***

Commissioner Jørgensen 

AI and digital tools are changing the way we live, the way we work, and the way we use our energy.

And I believe that Europe can lead that transformation.

But if we want to be successful, we need to ensure that this brings positive change in our society.

We need to do this in a European way.

So our ambition as Commission is to make sure that we manage new energy demand in a responsible way.

And at the same time, to make the best of the new opportunities at our fingertips.

First of all, we need to integrate digital infrastructure in our energy system in a sustainable way.

Because there can be no digital sovereignty without energy sovereignty.

Of course, we will need and welcome data centres to power Europe's digital economy.

But we must recognise that they also absorb increasing shares of our energy at a moment when we need to electrify our entire economy.

In 2024, data centres in the EU consumed enough electricity to power nearly 20 million European households!

By 2030, we expect this demand to more than double.

This is something that we need to manage, sustainably and responsibly.

This is why we will soon introduce a European rating scheme for data centres.

And we will promote a model for agreements between public authorities, data centre operators, and energy actors.

Our focus will be on grid integration, clean energy supply, flexibility, and energy efficiency, together with the protection of water resources and environmental standards.

With these actions, we will help our Member States grow their digital economies without raising energy costs for local consumers or other sectors.

On the other hand – this is the positive news – digital tools and AI open up to new good opportunities we cannot miss.

They can help capture savings, increase our efficiency, and cut emissions.

This is why today we also set out how to make the most of digitalisation and AI for our energy system.

Digital solutions can bring a lot of benefits: improve grid functions, help us to forecast demand and detect faults.

They can help to manage congestion, avoid wasting renewable energy and plan better investments for our grids.  

And very importantly, thanks to digital solutions, consumers can get greater control over their energy use.

Shifting consumption to cheaper hours can truly help in lowering the energy bill.  

To give you one example, already today, Swedish households that use electric heating can save up to 40% thanks to demand flexibility. 

This is the type of positive change we want to bring in our entire Energy Union.

So far, the uptake of smart meters is very different across our Member States. It can be as low as 5% in some, while reaching 90% in others.

This is why we want to accelerate the rollout of smart meters and smart grids across the whole Union.

And this is not the end of the story.

Energy is a sector of strategic importance for our whole economy. For our security.

This is why we want to build a new AI model for the energy sector that is trained on European data and developed by European companies.

This is a matter of European technological sovereignty and of strategic autonomy.

For this reason, we will develop AI models across the value chain and establish an EU framework to simplify the exchange of cross-border energy data.

In this way, we can boost smart energy services and activate flexibility from electric vehicles, heat pumps, and batteries.

This can help deliver savings for millions across Europe.

Finally, as a more digitalised energy system also brings in new risks, we will also improve the cybersecurity of critical devices, such as solar installations, and ensure the safe use of AI.

To conclude, if we take these steps today, if we follow this roadmap, Europe can take the lead, and take charge in the AI race – in its own, responsible way.

If we do this right, we can truly secure our tech sovereignty while transforming - and not overwhelming - our energy system.

And we can step closer to a cleaner, more competitive, and more independent Europe.