EU to unveil plan to wean off US, Asia tech

THE EU was yesterday expected to set out how the 27-country bloc hopes to slash its dependence on American and Asian technology, and favour European digital alternatives.

- 

The plans risk further angering the US, which has pushed back hard at the EU’s fines and rules in recent years against American tech companies. The bloc has in the past year ramped up its efforts to boost domestic manufacturing across different sectors, and catch up with rival companies in the US and China.

EU tech tsar Henna Virkkunen will unveil the new “technological sovereignty” package in Brussels, including new rules on chips, cloud computing and AI. The goal: to build digital ecosystems that ensure Europe retains control over services and data, and resists foreign interference.

Brussels worries its soft underbelly has been exposed after crises over chips and rare earths with China last year, coupled with fears an angry President Donald Trump could one day pull the plug on US cloud computing via a “kill switch”.