The European Union faces a fundamental challenge: how to translate its strategic ambition for digital sovereignty into concrete policy and market outcomes. While Europe has developed a robust regulatory framework for digital markets, it has struggled to build genuine alternatives to non-EU technology providers, particularly in cloud infrastructure, AI systems, and foundational digital services.

European cloud providers hold just 13% of their own home market (EPRS Study – Software dependencies). Three US-based hyperscalers dominate the rest, and are investing heavily to consolidate that dominance. At a time of geopolitical instability and transatlantic trade tensions, this concentration raises serious concerns for Europe’s economic resilience, democratic governance, and strategic autonomy – touching everything from public administration digitalisation to the protection of sensitive data and democratic institutions.

The Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA) is currently in preparation, and its design will be pivotal in determining whether Europe can move from regulatory ambition to genuine market transformation. Unlike the concentrated platform model that created this dependency, European tech is built on interoperability and federation, which is inherently more open, resilient, and SME-friendly. This event brings together the key policymakers with European providers listed in the Tech Sovereignty Catalogue – a curated reference helping buyers identify vetted sovereign alternatives – and the major organisations deploying them at scale, to feed into the legislative process ahead of the proposal and ensure that the framework reflects the realities on the ground.