While more than 70% of Europe’s cloud infrastructure still relies on U.S. providers, digital sovereignty has moved beyond the realm of specialists to become a top-level management issue. At VivaTech 2026, legal experts, industry leaders, and representatives of the European tech ecosystem reached a shared conclusion: technological dependence is no longer just an IT issue. It has become a strategic issue.
For a long time, the cloud was presented as a given—an invisible infrastructure, available on demand, whose value was measured primarily in terms of cost, performance, and ease of use.
That view is now being challenged.
At VivaTech, a panel discussion on European digital sovereignty highlighted a major shift: what companies once viewed as a simple technological choice is now perceived as a potential strategic dependency.
The issue is no longer just about data hosting. It concerns the ability of an organization, a nation, or a continent to retain decision-making authority over the infrastructure that supports its digital economy.
The End of the “Return to Normal” Illusion
According to the speakers, the past eighteen months have marked a turning point.
Technological restrictions, export controls, trade tensions, extraterritorial sanctions, and limitations on access to certain artificial intelligence technologies have profoundly altered perceptions of risk.
For many European companies, the question is no longer whether these dependencies exist, but how to manage them.
At SAP, discussions with customers reveal a new awareness: the assumption that technological globalization would guarantee open access to platforms and innovations in the long term is no longer taken for granted.
This paradigm shift is transforming digital sovereignty into a matter of business continuity.
Senior management is now questioning its ability to maintain operations if a supplier, regulation, or geopolitical decision were to abruptly alter the conditions for accessing critical technology.
Three Dimensions of Sovereignty
One of the most interesting aspects of the debate was the attempt to define what the concept of digital sovereignty actually encompasses.
For OVHcloud, it rests on three complementary pillars:
- data sovereignty;
- operational sovereignty;
- technological sovereignty.
The first concerns data control and access.
The second concerns the effective operation of infrastructure.
The third raises questions about mastery of the entire technology stack: software, platforms, components, and services.
This approach goes far beyond traditional debates about the location of data centers.
Data can be stored in Europe while still being subject to external technical, legal, or operational dependencies.
The real issue, then, becomes the ability to choose.
Sovereignty is not presented as isolation or digital protectionism, but as the ability to freely decide on the technological architectures best suited to an organization’s risks and objectives.
Technology has become a power dynamic
One of the most striking contributions to the panel came from representatives of European tech SMEs.
Their assessment was blunt: Europe has long treated technology as a commodity.
The prevailing view was to prioritize the most accessible solutions, those that could be deployed the fastest, or the least expensive ones.
This line of reasoning has helped reinforce dominant positions that have now become extremely difficult to challenge.
“Technology is not a neutral tool. Technology is power,” summarized one of the participants.
This statement reflects a profound shift in European thinking.
The issue is no longer purely economic.
It has become industrial, geopolitical, and democratic.
Whoever controls the infrastructure also controls, in part, the rules of the game.
Can Europe follow the Chinese model?
The comparison with China came up repeatedly during the discussions.
In just a few decades, the country has built a largely autonomous digital ecosystem capable of replacing major Western platforms in most strategic applications.
However, none of the speakers seemed to view this model as one worth replicating.
The European goal is not to exclude foreign players.
It is to restore freedom of choice.
This distinction is essential.
The European sovereignty envisioned at VivaTech relies more on the coexistence of several credible options than on the creation of a closed system.
In other words, the goal is not to replace one form of dependence with another.
It involves reintroducing genuine competition into segments that are currently largely dominated by a few global players.
The challenge isn’t the cloud, but the ecosystem
The debate also highlighted a common misconception: reducing digital sovereignty to the issue of the cloud alone.
U.S. hyperscalers do not merely provide infrastructure.
They offer an extremely broad range of services, tools, platforms, APIs, and development environments.
It is precisely this depth of the ecosystem that makes substitution complex.
Even European leaders cannot replicate this offering on their own.
According to the speakers, the European response will necessarily have to be a collective one.
It will be based on interoperability, the federation of services, and cooperation among large corporations, innovative SMEs, startups, and public institutions.
This approach differs fundamentally from the U.S. model, which is based on a few dominant platforms.
It relies more on the diversity of stakeholders and the resilience of a distributed network.
The Real Challenge: Creating Demand
A consensus emerged regarding the role of public authorities.
Speakers believe that the market alone will not be enough to foster the emergence of competitive European alternatives.
Public procurement appears to be one of the main drivers.
According to figures cited during the discussion, a very significant portion of European governments’ digital spending currently benefits non-European suppliers.
Gradually redirecting a portion of these investments could help create markets, finance local innovation, and accelerate the growth of sovereign ecosystems.
The issue is therefore not solely a technological one.
It is also a matter of industrial policy.
Sovereignty as a Catalyst for Transformation
Perhaps the most interesting lesson from this discussion lies elsewhere.
Digital sovereignty is no longer viewed as a regulatory constraint.
It is becoming a driver of transformation.
The most forward-thinking companies are beginning to map their critical assets, prioritize their risks, and adapt their technology architectures accordingly.
Not all data requires the same level of protection.
Not all processes require the same level of control.
The goal is not to make the entire system sovereign.
It is about identifying what truly deserves to be sovereign.
In a world where artificial intelligence, the cloud, and digital infrastructure are becoming the foundations of the economy, sovereignty ultimately appears less as an ideological project than as a risk management exercise.
Europe may have been slow to realize this.
But judging by the discussions at VivaTech 2026, the topic has now taken center stage in the strategic thinking of both companies and governments.
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