Calls For ‘Digital Sovereignty’ Gaining Traction in Europe

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang found a receptive audience among business and political leaders as he toured the major European capitals last week to pitch his plan to invest billions in new AI infrastructure across the continent, Reuters reports.

“We are going to invest billions in here … but Europe needs to move into AI quickly,” Huang said.

The chipmaker announced plans to partner with France’s Mistral to build a data center to meet the AI needs of European companies with a home-grown alternative to U.S. tech giants. Per Reuters, the center will be powered by 18,000 Nvidia GPUs, with plans to expand to multiple sites in 2026.

Speaking at the VivaTech conference in Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron called building AI infrastructure “our fight for sovereignty.”

Huang also met with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to tout a planned partnership with Deutsche Telekom to build an AI cloud platform in Germany. Initial plans call for Nvidia to supply 10,000 GPUs to power a new DT data center, with additional centers on the drawing board.

“We expressly welcome the commitment of Nvidia and its partners.,” Merz said in a statement following the meeting. “This cooperation can be an important step for Germany’s digital sovereignty and economic future.” Merz’s government has also offered to fund 35% of the cost to build other large data centers and hopes ultimately to acquire 100,000 GPUs.

At Huang’s stop in London, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed to invest £1 billion ($136 billion) to build new digital infrastructure in the U.K. “to be an AI maker and not an AI taker.”

The push for European digital sovereignty comes as the continent is confronting a range of economic and political headwinds blowing from the U.S., adding to the urgency to boost European technology independence. The Trump administration has imposed steep new tariffs on the European Union as well as the U.K. The Starmer government recently reached an agreement with Washington on a “framework” to a new trade deal with would lower the tariffs, while the EU is still locked in tense negotiations with the White House.

The Trump administration has also put pressure on the EU and UK ease technology regulations it claims disproportionately affect U.S. tech companies.

The drive to lessen Europe’s dependence on U.S. companies for AI and other digital technologies doesn’t come without it own risks, however.

Speaking on the Tech Policy Press podcast over the weekend, Kai Zenner, a top digital policy advisor to German MEP Axel Voss, one of the most influential voices on AI in Europe, warned of possible pushback.

“I think one of the big mistakes has been that this whole push came across rather protectionist,” he said of previous campaigns for sovereignty. “So there was again this idea of building up now everything on our own, basically creating an Airbus for every part of the tech stack. And then of course those people who are not supportive of Europe’s tech sovereignty had, let’s say an easy target to push back.”

He added that the best of plans can also be thwarted by competition among EU member states,

“If we have a very good chance or if there is a very good public-private partnerships that is very promising, that member states and companies are then maybe not thinking about, okay, I want to have this project in Germany or otherwise I will not invest as German government, or I want to profit the most out of it, otherwise I will not invest in it as company B or C,” he said. “I hope this mentality is really, at least for now, gone.”