European cloud providers back EU push to cut reliance on US tech

Thirteen European cloud providers joined forces with a group of EU lawmakers and NGOs ​on Monday to back the European Commission's drive ‌to cut the region's dependence on US technologies and support local businesses.

• The Commission is set to announce measures on ​Wednesday aimed at ensuring European companies, rather ​than US rivals, provide cloud streaming services for ⁠sensitive public tenders, while also boosting the production ​of made-in-Europe chips.
• The push is driven partly by ​tensions with the United States and China, as well as by a broader effort to catch up with both rivals ​in key technologies.
• "Technological sovereignty means that Europe has ​the capacity to freely design, understand, choose from different home-grown sources, ‌build, ⁠operate and effectively regulate the digital systems on which its society and economy rely," the groups said in a joint open letter seen by Reuters.
• Signatories ​include French ​cloud vendor OVHcloud, ⁠Germany's Nextcloud, social networks Mastodon and Monnett Social, Swiss privacy software company ​Proton, browser company Ecosia and Dutch quantum ​chip ⁠maker QuantWare.
• Lawmakers from the Greens group at the European Parliament and six civil groups including Defend Democracy and ⁠Save ​Social also signed the letter.
• "Our ​message is simple: Build European, buy European, protect European," said lawmaker ​Alexandra Geese.