We’re halfway through the EU’s Digital Decade, but are we halfway there?
I missed the report. Maybe you did too. Guess the answer is no. The EU IT industry has their work cut out for them.
I know. You might think, who cares? Who cares if all of my digital services are American. They have sane people at the wheel there, right? Right?
Who cares if the semiconductors in my car all come from China. Works fine, right? Right?
All true. All very 2010. When countries of the world were still all — sort of — working together, trading together. But that’s all changed. In 2025 we’re in a much more hostile world.
The European Commission realised that we here in the EU are far too dependent.
On the one hand, the USA, which had acquired a firebrand president in Trump 1.0 who was saying some crazy things about breaking up relations which had been a constant for 80 years.
On the other, manufacturing powerhouse China with an immense domestic and international market, and growing self-awareness, now rich enough to buy up European companies. Becoming increasingly belligerent to boot.
In 2020, the Digital Decade was launched. To the tune of three hundred billion euros, we in the EU would catch up with the USA and China.
Free from the clutches of the Big Three: Microsoft, Google, Amazon. Free from the rare earths monopoly that is China. Freedom from China’s hold on microelectronics that we need to produce our own gear.
But we are falling behind.
Only 56% of EU citizens have basic digital capabilities: finding and understanding online data, messaging, creating digital content. A 5G sim is a luxury only one in three have. It’s about 90% in the USA and China.
Five other metrics that leave the EU in the dust:
1. Cloud Computing: The US (AWS, Microsoft, Google) and China (Alibaba, Tencent) dominate.
2. Data Centres: Both lead in hyperscale, in edge computing.
3. Platforms: The EU has no Google, Facebook, nothing like China’s TikTok or WeChat.
4. Security: The US and China invest far more in cyber defence and offensive capabilities.
5. Public Services: The EU is fragmented. China’s unified digital ID/government apps and US private-sector outpace us.
And then there’s this:
🧠 AI: China and the USA lead. The USA’s OpenAI is just one of a host of multi-billion AI companies, China has DeepSeek and others. The EU has tiny Mistral AI.
💡Semiconductors: Both dominate production and R&D, with the USA controlling the market for the kind AI needs. The EU struggles to keep the little domestic production that it has from being moved to China.
⚛️ Quantum Computing: The US and China are way ahead.
But there’s some encouraging news for the IT industry. The EU will need hundreds of thousands of specialists to meet its Digital Decade goals.
One million AI engineers, a half a million cybersecurity experts, at least 200,000 more cloud and edge specialists to build and maintain independent infrastructure, 500,000 data professionals, 80,000–100,000 new jobs in semiconductor design and manufacturing.
We have our work cut out for us.