German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron plan to issue a joint call on Tuesday, November 18, urging Europe to strengthen its digital “sovereignty” and reduce its dependence on American tech giants amid an accelerating race in artificial intelligence.
The initiative will be presented at a summit in Berlin that will bring together, alongside the leaders of the EU’s two largest economies, the heads of major regional companies, including the French AI firm Mistral and the German conglomerate SAP.
As artificial intelligence begins to shape the trajectory of numerous industries, Europe faces mounting pressure to assert greater control over its digital future. Concerns about the dominance of U.S. tech companies have grown further following the return to power of President Donald Trump, who is questioning long-standing Washington ties with European partners across a range of areas.
Germany’s Digital Development Minister Carsten Wildberger said on Monday that the summit’s core message is that “Europe is ready to shape its digital future and reduce its dependence.” Speaking at a groundbreaking ceremony for an €11 billion ($12.8 billion) data-center project near Berlin, he stressed that “by moving together, we can advance more quickly.”
The European Union, meanwhile, is routinely criticized for its slow response in the race for leadership in artificial intelligence, where the United States and China are far ahead of Europe. Later this week, the EU will unveil proposals to revise the rules governing artificial intelligence and data protection, and this issue will be one of the central themes of the Berlin summit.
Strict regulations have drawn complaints both from European firms striving to catch up and from American tech giants. Brussels is now being accused of prioritizing competitiveness over the protection of citizens’ privacy.

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Developing Europe’s Own Cloud Capacity and Protecting Citizens’ Data
Another topic in Berlin will be the push to build “sovereign” cloud technologies within the EU. Advocates argue that creating domestic infrastructure would offer stronger safeguards for Europeans’ data in a field dominated today by American companies, including Google, AWS and Microsoft.
The agenda also includes plans to broaden competition between governments and the private sector and to establish “fair and efficient” digital markets.
Merz and Macron are expected to deliver keynote speeches in the afternoon. Ministers responsible for digital development from across Europe will also attend the summit. After the day’s events, the two leaders will have dinner with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, though a German government spokesperson declined to specify what topics will be discussed.
The summit is also expected to feature announcements of several new digital initiatives.
Beyond concerns over excessive dependence on the United States, Europe has long voiced unease about its reliance on companies from China, governed by the Communist Party, and other Asian countries for critical hardware supplies—from semiconductors to laptop components.
According to a survey by the digital association Bitkom, roughly 90 percent of German companies that purchase digital goods or services consider themselves dependent on such supplies.
Europe’s Investment Gap with the U.S. and China and Its Deepening Reliance on American Technology
Bitkom President Ralf Wintergerst said Europe must urgently step up investment in the digital sector. “Europe cannot afford to lag behind—today’s investment underpins tomorrow’s competitiveness and jobs,” he noted. He added that “if Europe does not want to become a technology museum, the scale of investment must increase substantially.”
Yet for the EU, the task remains formidable. The bloc is grappling with the consequences of prolonged economic weakness, and its tech companies are far smaller in scale than their American counterparts.
A recent Bitkom study notes that as of last year, the combined capacity of European data centers—critical for the development of artificial intelligence—stood at just 16 gigawatts. In the United States, the figure reached 48 gigawatts, and in China—38.
Critics argue that recent investment announcements in Germany—Google’s multibillion-euro plans and a partnership between U.S. chipmaker Nvidia and Deutsche Telekom on industrial AI—only underscore Europe’s continuing dependence on American technology.
Despite tensions between the United States and Europe, a senior Élysée Palace official stressed that the upcoming summit is not intended to “confront” either the U.S. or China. The aim, he said, is to determine “how to safeguard the essential elements of our sovereignty and what rules must be established, above all at the European level.”