37 Implementable Measures for Digital Sovereignty in Germany and Europe

Fritzi Köhler-Geib, Claudia Plattner, Kristina Sinemus Impulse for strengthening digital Sovereignty in Germany and Europe Considerations and measures to strengthen digital sovereignty and technological capability in Germany and Europe Photo: Deutsche Bundesbank (AI)

2 1 Why? Digital sovereignty is a central prerequisite for Germany's and Europe's competitiveness and capability to act in the 21st century. It will largely determine where value creation will take place in the future and who can actively shape technological developments. Digital sovereignty also means the ability of the state, economy, and society to develop and use key digital technologies and critical infrastructures themselves. The goal is to secure technological capability and create strategic options. Recent developments, in which Germany and Europe often find themselves at a disadvantage, underscore the urgency. Germany and Europe have excellent prerequisites to actively shape this development: a strong industrial base, excellent research institutions, highly qualified specialists, financial strength, and a large single market. In addition to cultural diversity, which makes Europe strong and special, there are different strengths and specializations, a broad spectrum of technological competencies that can be combined into a unique technology ecosystem. This presents a great opportunity: The global IT market is estimated by market research firm Gartner to be worth 5.6 trillion US dollars. If it succeeds in gaining market shares with competitive European-native products, there are enormous growth opportunities. If Europe specifically bundles its industrial strengths, its research excellence, and its single market, globally leading technology providers and infrastructures can emerge. Essential in this regard: a unified digital single market and the reduction of national regulatory fragmentation. Furthermore, advancing the common goal of digital sovereignty also presents a great opportunity to bring Europe closer together. The example of Airbus shows what is possible: When Europe fell behind in the aviation sector, a German-French consortium succeeded in 1970 in founding a new company and building it into a globally successful group. Since the 1990s at the latest, Airbus has been a successful, established player in global competition. Today, Europe faces a comparable challenge in the technology sector and has immense catching up to do: As of 2025, we in Europe import 80% of IT infrastructure and technologies from non-European providers1. Due to market concentration, these can largely set prices and make it difficult for new EU-native companies to enter and scale. Enabling greater diversification of IT offerings, including through national and European providers who can offer attractively priced and high-quality products, is therefore in the public interest. In this respect, advancing digital sovereignty in Europe requires coordination, networking, and political support. This supports existing economic engagement, so that the private sector in Europe can fully unleash and scale its technological implementation power, much like in the aviation sector in the early 1970s. The diversity of key digital technologies – from quantum computing to cloud services to robotics – opens up opportunities for companies from almost all member states to contribute their specific strengths. From the sum of these capabilities, a whole can emerge that is far greater than the sum of its parts – it would, in a sense, be the Airbus moment of the European tech age. Concrete solutions in the technology field can also show how the framework conditions in future-oriented fields in Europe need to be adapted and further developed. A powerful step in this context would be stronger capital market integration – especially with regard to venture capital. However, it will be crucial to implement concrete activities very quickly now. The aim of this paper is therefore not a further analysis and evaluation of the current situation or ongoing developments, but a concrete impulse for coordination, networking, and overall societal support that counteracts current market developments with real weight. 1 Source Error! Reference source could not be found.

3 2 What? With our contribution, we want to invite a constructive and productive discourse to develop operational, quickly implementable measures with strategic relevance that strengthen the digital sovereignty of Germany and Europe from a technological perspective – and create a platform where relevant stakeholders can coordinate their activities. This paper illuminates a strategy for improving digital sovereignty in three central dimensions: 1. Innovation and Technology, 2. Economy and Financing, 3. Communication. In addition to these dimensions, a more comprehensive consideration includes others, such as data and information, energy supply, and defense. We have not dealt with these in depth in the present paper due to the focus on the most relevant measures for digital sovereignty. Of course, no collection of measures or considerations on this topic can be complete or exhaustive; however, an impulse for the implementation of concrete measures that have an impact could be given.

3 How – Measures Innovation and Technology Digital sovereignty is based on innovation and technology. To achieve it, public demand must be strategically utilized, financing secured, and research results consistently converted into marketable products.

Strategic Digital Future Technologies

Europe must significantly accelerate the development of selected digital future technologies. The competition for technological leadership in the digital environment and, as a result, for market shares is decided in particular by developments in five strategically relevant digital future technologies: 1) Chip technology, 2) Cloud and Datacenter (including their energy supply), 3) Artificial Intelligence (AI), 4) Quantum Computing, and 5) Robotics.

• Measure: Focus on relevant, digital future technologies: 1) Chips, 2) Clouds/DC, 3) Robotics, 4) AI and 5) Quantum Computing
• Technology: All
• Approach:
  1. The goal is a political commitment at the highest level that these technologies are in focus and their further development at the location is supported and accelerated by appropriate framework setting and, if necessary, funding.
• Feasibility (1-5 difficult-easy): 5
• Impact digital sovereignty (1-5 low-high):
  • short-term: 1
  • long-term: 4
• Time horizon: short-term

Chip Technology

The current discourse clearly shows that in the area of chip technologies, complex dependencies exist in supply chains and it is unlikely that any state will be able to build a completely independent supply chain in the medium or long term. The measures therefore aim to make existing dependencies and supply chains transparent and to identify areas where the rest of the world is also dependent on Europe. These can then be used as a bargaining chip in further negotiations, thereby simultaneously creating a good starting position for technological leadership with regard to future chip technologies (e.g., Photonic Chips and Cryogenic Chips).

• Measure: Negotiate chip guarantees against chip supply chain guarantees with USA, China and Taiwan

• Technology: Chips

• Approach:

  1. Commission mapping of supply chains/elaboration of mutual dependencies and supply chains
  2. Substantive preparation of negotiations (papers)
  3. Bring to the attention of the EU Commission
  4. Introduce within the framework of upcoming customs talks with the USA and trade agreements with China and other countries

• Feasibility (1-5 difficult-easy): 2

• Impact digital sovereignty (1-5 low-high): 3

• Time horizon: short-term

• Measure: Finance the step to mass production for Photonic Chip manufacturers in Germany

• Technology: Chips

• Approach:

  1. Identification of eligible companies
  2. Evaluate opportunities and risks
  3. Mobilize 2-4 billion Euros of private or public capital
  4. Accompanying measure: Ensure state or federal state guarantees or coordination for financing (cf.: KfW financing of demonstration projects for offshore wind farms 2011)
  5. Commitment of investment
  6. Accompanying measure: Award a contract with a fixed delivery quantity that can be used for special areas in national security

• Feasibility (1-5 difficult-easy): 3

• Impact digital sovereignty (1-5 low-high):

  • short-term: 2
  • long-term: 4

• Time horizon: medium-term

• Measure: Finance research for future chips: Cryo-Chips, Graphene-Chips, Inference-Chips

• Technology: Chips

• Approach:

  1. Finance 50-100 million Euros for basic research and application-oriented research and bring it to implementation

• Feasibility (1-5 difficult-easy): 5

• Impact digital sovereignty (1-5 low-high):

  • short-term: 1
  • long-term: 3

• Time horizon: medium-term

• Measure: Chip Production: Set up an EU program corresponding to the AI Gigafactories

• Technology: Chips

• Approach:

  1. Bring to the attention of the EU Commissioner and advocate for a program comparable to AI Gigafactories
  2. Implementation of the program

• Feasibility (1-5 difficult-easy): 2

• Impact digital sovereignty (1-5 low-high): 5

• Time horizon: medium-term

Cloud and Datacenter

The measures for the technology field