Macron on Technology: Stick to "Europe First" and Not a Vassal of the US and China

Not being a "vassal", sticking to "Europe first", and building an "autonomous digital path", on Tuesday, French President Macron and German Chancellor Scholz jointly called for European "digital sovereignty" at the closing ceremony of the Digital Summit, aiming to catch up with the technological lag compared to the US and China, especially in the field of artificial intelligence. The goal of the two leaders is to drive Europe's technological independence by leveraging the Franco-German cooperation.

Macron said, "Let's be clear: Europe does not want to become a customer of large technology companies or solutions from the US or China. We must clearly put forward our own solutions." He emphasized the need to reject becoming a vassal. He also pointed out that Europe has long been pursuing a "non-European solution," but now it must change through implementing a "Europe first" policy, which is the "primary task" to promote the rise of European "leading enterprises."

Scholz stated, "We are working together to achieve a common goal: European digital sovereignty." He emphasized that the cost of autonomy is far less than the cost of dependence and called on not letting "technological hegemony" go to the US and China.

Investments in Hundreds of Billions

Scholz said that European companies committed over 12 billion euros in investments at the summit. Attendees included ministers, EU representatives, and tech industry giants such as French AI company Mistral and German software giant SAP. Although this number is not small in Europe, it is still far from sufficient compared to the strength of the US tech industry, and it is far away from what French Economy Minister Roland Lescure mentioned that day in Berlin, "needs thousands of billions of euros annually to keep up with the competition."

Europe is still dependent on giants like Nvidia, Google, Amazon, and OpenAI, so it is called upon to re-claim its own digital destiny.

Relaxing Regulations on European Companies, but Strengthening Regulations on American Companies

A key condition proposed by German Chancellor and Macron is to completely simplify European regulatory practices, as excessive regulation has been blamed for stifling innovation.

Macron said, "We must innovate first, then regulate." He mentioned the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and believes that this regulation should be reformed and improved by the European Commission.

It is reported that the European Commission will present an "omnibus bill" on Wednesday, which includes several relaxation measures in technology regulation. Lescure emphasized that the investment efforts of Europe must be undertaken by Europe itself, "we cannot let the euro become the dollar." He said that Europe cannot "on one hand call for digital sovereignty, while on the other hand let tech giants deeply access our core financial data."

EU Vice President for Digital Affairs Henna Virkkunen announced that the EU may also require cloud service giants Amazon and Microsoft to comply with stricter rules. Virkkunen said that the European Commission has already launched two investigations on Tuesday to determine whether "Amazon Web Services and Microsoft should be designated as [gatekeepers] in the cloud computing sector." If identified, they would be subject to the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The DMA is a landmark regulation that came into effect last year, aimed at ending the abuse of market dominance by tech giants.

Europe Still Severely Relies on Imports in Areas Like Artificial Intelligence

In areas such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and critical computing components, Europe still severely relies on imports. A survey by the German industry association Bitkom found that about 90% of German import companies believe they face dependency risks in these areas. Ralph Wintergerst, president of Bitkom, told AFP that investment must be significantly increased, but the situation is difficult: weak economic growth, deep-rooted problems, and European companies are much smaller compared to their US counterparts. Bitkom's data show that Europe's data centers, one of the core infrastructures of the AI revolution, had a total capacity of 16 gigawatts last year, while the US had 48 gigawatts and China had 38 gigawatts.

Source: rfi

Original: www.toutiao.com/article/1849158134461448/

Statement: This article represents the views of the author himself.