OCCASIONAL PAPER – No. 03/2024 - The EU’s Trillion Dollar Gap in ICT and Cloud Computing Capacities:

In 2020, EU member states signed a joint declaration which pledged public money to power the cloud sector and establish the “European Alliance on Industrial Data and Cloud.” The declaration addresses the broader concerns of the economic and security risks associated with outsourcing data and the long-term implications of dependency on external technology platforms.3 This ongoing debate underlines. [...] With the advent of 5G and 6G, which blends with AI and cloud computing, new services and products are now being enabled to meet the growing demand of creating data and knowledge fast to support a digital and interconnected economy in a secure way.8 The future development of 6G/xG will further transform distributing data and computing to edge cloud. [...] 03/2024 Below we demonstrate the inherent shortcomings of the EU “sovereigntist” approach to cloud resulting from a substantial lack of cumulated investments by European technology companies in ICT technology in the past and the ongoing growth and technological innovation in the industry globally. [...] Despite the EU’s endeavours to foster a competitive ICT and cloud services ecosystem, the supremacy of US companies is pronounced, indicating a potential necessity for European firms to bolster their technology and innovation investments to improve their standing and offerings in the international cloud services market. [...] 3.1 The Uptake of Advanced Cloud Computing Services The uptake of cloud computing services can be traced to the late 2000s and early 2010s when the technology began to garner mainstream attention and utilisation.39 This trend was propelled by several key developments, including the widespread availability of high-speed internet, the emergence of smartphones and mobile computing, advancements in da.