The new Danish government platform places digital sovereignty, technological autonomy and critical technologies clearly at the intersection of business policy, security policy and Europe’s strategic ability to act. This is a relevant and necessary priority, because Europe’s digital dependency is not only about platforms, AI models or regulation. It is also about the underlying infrastructure layers on which digital services, data ecosystems and future AI capabilities are built.
If Europe is to reduce its dependency on a small number of large non-European technology actors, it is not sufficient to focus only on the use of technology. Europe also needs to strengthen its technical capacity to develop, coordinate and further evolve the software layers that make modern cloud infrastructure scalable, interoperable and resilient. These are the layers where a significant part of the long-term control over digital infrastructure is determined.
The government platform highlights artificial intelligence as a strategic area and points, among other things, to data quality, data security, IT infrastructure, digital tools and increased supercomputing capacity. This is an important recognition, because questions about AI are increasingly also questions about digital sovereignty. The ability to develop, operate and scale advanced AI systems depends not only on access to models and data, but also on the infrastructure layers on which these systems are built.
The same applies to defence, preparedness and critical technologies, where the government platform points to the need for closer cooperation between research, innovation and production environments. Digital infrastructure is increasingly part of Europe’s strategic resilience, and the underlying software layers should therefore be treated as a capability that must be developed and maintained with a long-term European perspective.
This work is already underway in several places across Europe, including through initiatives such as EUCLORA and InnoFabric, where the focus is on shared architecture, interoperability, federation and open technical foundations for European cloud capability. The point is not for Europe to isolate itself technologically, but for Europe to have a more genuine choice and a stronger capability of its own in areas where digital dependency can become a strategic vulnerability.
Digital sovereignty only becomes operational when it is translated from political ambition into technical and organisational structures that can be used in practice. The government platform therefore sets an important agenda, but the next step will be decisive. If the ambition of European technological independence is to have real effect, it must be connected to concrete infrastructure capabilities, long-term funding, shared European standards and close cooperation between government, industry and research.