Europe Moves to Curb Reliance on Non-EU Technology

More than 80 percent of the products, services and intellectual property in the European Union's digital economy come from outside the bloc. That single figure, now cited by the European Commission, explains why Brussels and Warsaw are simultaneously stepping up efforts to curb purchases of technology from non-EU suppliers, from cloud computing to artificial intelligence models and chips.

A new package from Brussels

The European Commission has unveiled a package aimed at reducing the EU's dependence on non-EU technology suppliers, with a particular focus on semiconductors, artificial intelligence and cloud services. It comprises two legislative proposals, the Chips Act 2.0 and the Cloud and AI Development Act, alongside a strategy to support open source software and a plan to digitize the energy sector.

The first version of the Chips Act, from 2023, attracted investments worth 52 billion euros and led to roughly 16,000 direct and 30,000 indirect jobs in Europe's semiconductor industry. The Commission is counting on the new version of the law to repeat that effect, this time with an emphasis on chips designed for AI workloads, which it forecasts will account for more than 70 percent of the entire semiconductor market by 2030.

The scale of dependence

The scale of the problem cited by the Commission is hard to ignore. More than 80 percent of the products, services, infrastructure and intellectual property used in Europe's digital economy come from outside the EU. About 70 percent of cloud data processing in the Union runs through American companies, Microsoft, Amazon and Google. AI adoption among European businesses stands at just around 30 percent, a level similar to the United States, though individual countries such as Sweden post notably better results.

What Poles and businesses say

The latest Eurobarometer data from the Digital Decade 2030 program show that 82 percent of Europeans believe the EU should reduce its dependence on non-EU suppliers. Among Poles that figure stands at 80 percent, and as many as 85 percent of respondents support increased investment in European digital solutions. These aren't just declarations, industry experts note that the way companies evaluate technology suppliers is also changing.

Until recently, organizations focused mainly on a technology's capabilities, today they increasingly look at who is actually responsible for its development - Adam Pastuszka, Business Development Manager, Polcom

Poland's sovereignty test

At the national level, Poland's Ministry of Digital Affairs is planning to introduce a tool referred to as a technological sovereignty test. It would assess publicly funded projects on who actually controls the data, how easily a supplier can be switched, and what impact a given solution has on state security. This marks a departure from a model in which the lowest price was the main criterion for choosing IT systems for public administration.

Experts stress, however, that this is not about cutting ties with global technology. It is about the ability to retain control over digital resources, not about closing the market to foreign solutions. In practice, this means favoring suppliers who offer a real ability to migrate data, audit code, or keep infrastructure within European jurisdiction.

Polish models as a bargaining chip

Against this backdrop, domestic language-model initiatives such as Bielik and PLLuM are developing, cited as examples of building independence from foreign AI model providers. Their development fits into a broader EU trend of investing in local computing capacity and homegrown models instead of relying solely on systems from the US or China.

These efforts were spurred in part by earlier decisions by American vendors to limit access to their newest AI models outside the United States, which made clear to European companies and institutions just how much risk comes with full dependence on a single foreign technology partner.

What this means for businesses in Poland

For Polish companies and public institutions, the shift in procurement criteria could in practice mean longer and more complex tender procedures, but also a real opportunity for domestic cloud and software providers who had until now been losing out to cheaper offers from global hyperscalers. Companies planning investments in AI infrastructure should expect criteria such as data location and the ability to switch suppliers to carry growing weight, especially in the public and regulated sectors.

The final shape of the Chips Act 2.0 and the Cloud and AI Development Act will now go through the legislative process in the European Parliament and the Council of the EU, which typically takes many months. In parallel, Poland's Ministry of Digital Affairs is expected to finalize the rules for the technological sovereignty test for public procurement, which could affect how the administration buys IT systems and cloud services in the coming quarters.