30.11.2025, Aleksandrovskoye.
In critical layers of internet technology—cloud, AI computing, mobile platforms, search/browsers, advertising, development infrastructure—Europe is fundamentally dependent on the USA
The problem of the growing digital dependence of Germany and the whole of Europe on the USA was acknowledged by tech billionaire Ralph Dommermuth (United Internet/IONOS). He stated that American companies control the entire digital product development chain, from chips, servers, and cloud technologies to AI models, online platforms, and applications. Digital sovereignty begins with recognizing the situation as a problem that then needs to be solved.
In an interview with Focus magazine on November 13, Dommermuth called for defining the criteria for the EU’s technological sovereignty, making the state an “anchor client” for local providers, and hosting large services in clouds controlled by EU citizens, reminding of problems with tax schemes and compliance with security requirements.
Dependency in Semiconductors and Computing Hardware
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In Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies: Nvidia (USA) is estimated to control about 80-90% of the market for AI vector processors/accelerators; alternatives (AMD, partially Intel) are also American. The CUDA software ecosystem, including tools and libraries that allow developers to use GPUs for parallel computing used in training and running AI models, is also American.
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In servers and processors: x86 processors (Intel, AMD) — USA; major server vendors HPE, Dell — USA. Europe has Eviden (Atos) and a number of niche manufacturers, but their shares are smaller.
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Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software for chips: Synopsys and Cadence — again from the USA; the only exception is Siemens EDA from Germany.
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Manufacturing Equipment: A strong point for the EU. ASML from the Netherlands is a monopoly in EUV lithography. However, Europe lacks its own leading-edge fabs at the 3-5 nm level (the main ones are TSMC, Samsung, located outside the EU).
Cloud and Data Storage/Processing
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IaaS/PaaS market in Europe: According to Synergy Research Group in 2023-2024, the “big three” (AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud) hold ~70-75% of the European market; the combined share of European providers (OVHcloud, IONOS, Orange/OBS, Scaleway, T-Systems/DT) is around 10-15%.
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Legal Dependency: The CLOUD Act (USA, 2018) allows US authorities to demand data from US cloud companies, even if the data is physically located in the EU. This requirement conflicts with the logic of “sovereign” storage.
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Attempts to Reduce Dependency: Include “sovereign” clouds based on US technology under local control for the public sector in France (the S3NS alliance of Google + Thales, and the company Bleu, established by Microsoft and Orange/Capgemini). Second is the GAIA-X initiative to develop a plan for a federated data security infrastructure in Europe. However, all these initiatives are in the early stages of implementation and represent a small part of the efforts towards localizing cloud storage.
Operating Systems and Application Ecosystems
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Nearly 100% of the European mobile OS market is occupied by American iOS (Apple) and Android (Google). They also control app stores and internal payment flows. The EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), in force since March 2024, aims to limit their influence and has increased openness requirements, but dominance persists.
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Computer Programs and Office Suites: Windows and Microsoft 365, Google Workspace are key corporate platforms. The EU has alternatives (SUSE, Canonical/Ubuntu, Nextcloud), but their share is significantly lower.
Search, Browsers, Maps
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Google’s share among search engines in EU countries consistently exceeds 90%, with no current trends indicating a change in this situation.
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Browser Engines: Chromium (Google) is the de facto standard; Safari/WebKit and Edge are also American ecosystems.
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Maps and Geo-services: Google Maps/Places API dominate among developers. The European alternative HERE (Germany/Netherlands) is strong in the auto industry but lags in coverage for web applications.
Social Platforms and Video Hosting
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Social networks and video hosting platforms Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, X/Twitter are key content distribution and communication channels in the EU, all American. There are practically no European platforms of comparable scale (the exception in music is Swedish Spotify).
Advertising, Analytics, and Identification
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Digital Advertising Systems: In many EU countries, the combined share of Google and Meta in digital advertising is estimated at 50-70%. Their stacks (Google Ads/Ad Manager, FB Ads) are the de facto standard.
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Web Analytics: Google Analytics has long been the No. 1 tool; several EU regulators (e.g., CNIL in France, DSB in Austria in 2022) have recognized the use of GA without proper data transfer guarantees to the US as non-compliant with GDPR.
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Single Sign-On Systems: Login via Google/Meta, corporate Okta/Azure AD — are American services.
Development Ecosystems and Application Delivery to Clouds
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Code Hosting and CI/CD: GitHub is the dominant platform (Microsoft, USA); GitLab is historically a European project, but the company is publicly traded in the USA; Atlassian (development tools) — American market.
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Package Repositories and Registries: npm, PyPI, Docker Hub are managed by American organizations; incidents and license changes in the US (Terraform→OpenTofu in 2023) instantly affect European teams.
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Virtualization and Management Systems: Kubernetes originated from Google; key open-source management foundations (Linux Foundation, CNCF, Apache) are American NGOs.
Artificial Intelligence
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Foundation Models: OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Meta are leaders in scale and API availability. The EU has notable players (Mistral AI, Aleph Alpha, DeepL), but the volume of computing and distribution is not yet comparable.
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AI Toolkits: PyTorch (Meta) and TensorFlow/JAX (Google) are the standard; switching to alternatives is limited by the ecosystem.
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Cloud Vector Computing Systems (GPU clusters) for AI training/inference in the EU are primarily with American giants; EuroHPC is building powerful systems (LUMI, LEONARDO, JUPITER), but they also rely on American architectures/accelerators.
Fundamental Internet Technologies
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Content Delivery Networks (CDN) and Protection: Cloudflare, Akamai, Fastly — American leaders on European traffic; European alternatives exist but have smaller shares.
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Public DNS Resolvers: Google (8.8.8.8), Cloudflare (1.1.1.1) are popular among providers and developers.
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Major Certificate Authorities (TLS): The largest CAs are mostly American (DigiCert, Sectigo, ISRG/Let’s Encrypt); qualified eIDAS-CAs in the EU are used less frequently for the web.
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Even Submarine Cables: A significant portion of new transatlantic cables is funded and operated by American web giants (MAREA — Microsoft/Meta; Dunant, Grace Hopper — Google; with the participation of European operators in some projects).
Payments and Monetization
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Payment Rails and Processing for Online Business: Visa/Mastercard, PayPal, Stripe — are American; the EU has strong players (Adyen, Klarna), but Apple/Google dominate in overall infrastructure and in-app payments.
What This Means for the EU
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Technological and Legal Vulnerability is tied to decisions by private companies in the USA and US jurisdiction (including the CLOUD Act) in critical technology layers.
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Limited Capacity for Independent Policy in a crisis, as restricted access to AI computing, APIs, or advertising/distribution channels can instantly affect European companies and government agencies.
EU Response and Actions
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Regulatory Steps: A series of legal standards and agreements like GDPR, DSA/DMA (in force since 2024), Data Act, EU-US Data Privacy Framework (2023) — attempts to level the playing field and reduce risks of cross-border data transfer.
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Sovereign Clouds and Public Procurement: Creating “sovereign” cloud offerings and directing the public sector towards European providers (what Dommermuth talks about) — a way to anchor demand and build the scale of local players.
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Investments in Computing and AI: EuroHPC, programs for RISC-V and an open AI ecosystem, support for European model developers (Mistral, Aleph Alpha) — an attempt to close the gap, but the cycle is long.
In critical layers of internet technology—cloud, AI computing, mobile platforms, search/browsers, advertising, development infrastructure—Europe is fundamentally dependent on the USA. The EU has strong niches (ASML, telecom vendors, specific SaaS/fintech players), but to reduce systemic dependence, large-scale development and procurement of its “own” stack, clear sovereignty criteria, and long-term investments in infrastructure and AI are needed—precisely what Dommermuth insists on.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
