Europe’s AI sovereignty push shifts toward practical infrastructure

Europe’s dependence on US and Chinese hyperscalers and foreign-hosted AI models is framed as a growing national security risk, particularly as companies and governments rely more heavily on external infrastructure. The push for sovereignty is increasingly moving beyond policy debates into practical decisions, with European businesses building parallel IT systems and adopting on-premise cloud and data solutions.

The strongest opportunities are seen in use case-driven fields where Europe has engineering depth and market expertise, including healthcare, climate science, quantum computing and robotics. Healthcare is highlighted as a sensitive area because medical data is personal and confidential, while French scale-up ALAN is cited as an example after raising €480m in June this year at a valuation of €5.5bn.

Europe still faces structural challenges, including overregulation, constraints on entrepreneurs, limited funding compared with the US, and a fragmented digital market. The US benefits from a $30 trillion pension fund flowing into PE and VC markets, while Horizon Europe provides €95.5 billion in R&D funding and supports 200-300 scientific discoveries annually across the EU and the UK.

The argument for European sovereignty centers on building competitive alternatives rather than defensive regulation alone. Instead of chasing US or Chinese LLMs and hyperscalers, Europe is urged to focus on areas such as quantum and robotics, especially as the US targets a quantum computer by 2028.