This month's issue explores how Europe became a digital colony, whether a "Made in Europe" industrial policy can save the continent's ailing auto sector, the EU's role within NATO and much more.
Europe has spent much of the past decade trying to regulate American technology companies. It’s only now confronting the deeper question: What happens if the infrastructure itself becomes a liability?
The European Union houses a marginal share of global AI computing power. Its cloud ecosystem is dominated by U.S. firms. More than 80% of European AI chatbot users rely on American models. For years, this imbalance was absorbed as the price of participating in a globalized digital economy.
But geopolitics has a way of clarifying trade-offs.
Given Washington’s increasingly hostile posture toward Europe — illustrated most recently by Donald Trump’s push to acquire Greenland — lawmakers and analysts are asking whether reliance on U.S. digital services could be weaponized. The hypothetical scenarios no longer appear far-fetched: restricted chip exports, capped cloud capacity and even disruptions to satellite connectivity.
This month’s cover story by Peder Schaefer explores the growing call for a “EuroStack” — a concerted effort to build European capacity across AI models, cloud infrastructure and semiconductor production that would reduce the continent’s reliance on both the U.S. and China.
At the same time, Europe’s dependence goes far beyond the tech sector. As Federica Di Sario reports in this edition, Chinese electric vehicles are gaining market share across the continent, posing an existential threat to its vaunted auto industry.
Indeed, Beijing’s capacity to deliver affordable goods — from cars to batteries — is shaping markets as much as Washington’s technological edge is transforming digital infrastructure. That pressure is now forcing Brussels to consider “Made in Europe” provisions to protect domestic manufacturing.
Of course, this moment isn’t merely about tech or trade policy. As the transatlantic alliance frays and Beijing widens its economic footprint, the broader question facing Europe is whether it can forge a path that protects its core interests without retreating into insularity.
— Christopher Alessi, Editor-in-Chief