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https://www.zdnet.com/article/europes-plan-to-ditch-us-tech-giants-is-built-on-open-source-and-its-gaining-steam/>
“Unlike any tech conference I've attended in the last few years, the top issue
at the 2025 OpenInfra Summit Europe at the École Polytechnique Paris was not
AI. Shocking, I know. Indeed, OpenInfra Foundation general manager Thierry
Carrez commented, "Did you notice what I didn't talk about in my keynote? I
made no mention of AI." But one issue that did appear — and would show up over
and over again in the keynotes, the halls, and the vendor booths — was digital
sovereignty.
Digital sovereignty is the ability of a country, organization, or individual to
control its own digital infrastructure, technologies, data, and online
processes without undue external dependency on foreign entities or large
technology companies. In other words, Europeans are tired of relying on what
they see as increasingly unreliable American companies and the US government.
Carrez explained: "We've seen old alliances between the US and the EU being
questioned or leveraged for immediate gains. We have seen the very terms of
exchange of goods changing almost every day. And as a response to that, in
Europe, we're moving to digital sovereignty." That shift, in turn, means
open-source software.
"The world needs sovereign, high-performance and sustainable infrastructure,"
continued Carrez, "that remains interoperable and secure, while collaborating
tightly with AI, containers and trusted execution environments. Open
infrastructure allows nations and organizations to maintain control over their
applications, their data, and their destiny while benefiting from global
collaboration."
Carrez thinks a better word for what Europe wants is not isolation from the US:
"What we're really looking for is resilience. What we want for our countries,
for our companies, for ourselves, is resilience. Resilience in the face of
unforeseen events in a fast-changing world. Open source," he concluded, "allows
us to be sovereign without being isolated."”
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
