Building a European digital stack: The alternatives to US big tech you should know

Europe is actively charting a course towards greater digital sovereignty, seeking to reduce its reliance on US Big Tech for critical digital infrastructure and services. This strategic shift is driven by a confluence of factors including tightening regulations, evolving geopolitical landscapes, and the growing importance of artificial intelligence as a foundational technology. The European Commission's recent consultation on open-source software signals a commitment to fostering local developer communities in building and maintaining the continent's core digital stack, aiming for technological independence. The ambition extends across various layers of the digital economy, offering alternatives to established US giants. In cloud computing and core internet infrastructure, providers like Evroc, Exoscale, Hetzner, IONOS Cloud, Open Telekom Cloud, OVHcloud, Scaleway, and UpCloud are emerging as credible European options. These companies aim to deliver efficient, responsible, and privacy-respecting services, catering to both enterprise and public sector needs, and ensuring that internet name resolution, for instance, remains within the EU through initiatives like DNS4EU. The AI and foundation model landscape also sees significant European innovation, with companies like Aleph Alpha, Dataiku, DeepL, and Mistral AI developing advanced solutions. These European players are not only competing on technological prowess but are also prioritizing local values such as privacy and sovereignty. Projects like Tilde's open-source LLM for Baltic and Eastern European languages and Noxtua's legal AI demonstrate a focused effort to create specialized, region-aware AI capabilities, moving beyond a universal, often US-centric, approach to AI development.