The European Union proposes a comprehensive "technological sovereignty" plan, emphasizing "autonomy."

Mars Finance News: On June 3, the European Commission released the “European Technological Sovereignty Package,” proposing to strengthen capabilities in areas including artificial intelligence, semiconductors, cloud computing, and open source, with the aim of enhancing Europe’s digital autonomy and resilience.

A news bulletin released by the European Commission on the same day said the package includes two legislative proposals— the “Cloud and Artificial Intelligence Development Act” and the “Chip Act 2.0”—as well as an “Open Source Strategy” and a “Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence Strategy Roadmap for the Energy Sector.” Before the relevant legislative proposals are adopted and take effect, they will be reviewed, deliberated, and negotiated by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union.

The bulletin said the package will help expand the range of choices available to EU enterprises, citizens, and public administrations in core technologies.

Among them, the goal of the “Cloud and Artificial Intelligence Development Act” is to increase Europe’s data center capacity to three times the current level within the next 5 to 7 years, and to strengthen the role of the “Application Artificial Intelligence Strategy” in promoting the widespread adoption of technology.

The “Chip Act 2.0” will build on Europe’s advantages in mainstream chips and other areas to develop advanced semiconductor technology capabilities and provide momentum for AI applications.

The “Open Source Strategy” will promote expanding the scale of open-source options in priority areas such as cloud, artificial intelligence, internet technologies, cybersecurity, and semiconductors, and support public administrations to make greater use of open source; the “Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence Strategy Roadmap for the Energy Sector” will promote the application of artificial intelligence and other digital solutions in power infrastructure.

In the bulletin, Hannah Værkuining, the Executive Vice President of the European Commission responsible for matters including technological sovereignty, said the package marks a major shift in Europe’s way of handling technological sovereignty. However, the plan has also sparked some controversy. For example, regarding the contents related to the “Chip Act 2.0,” the European digital industry organization “Digital Europe” said that the semiconductor value chain is highly globalized, and that the so-called “EU content” requirements are difficult to implement, which could fragment supply chains and weaken the competitiveness of the EU and its downstream industries. (Xinhua News Agency)