Mario Draghi warns the EU must secure data sovereignty and computing power to reverse a productivity slump and compete with US and Chinese AI dominance.

The European Union finds itself at a precarious crossroads in the global artificial intelligence race. While the United States and China have aggressively scaled their infrastructure, Europe is grappling with a widening productivity gap that threatens its long-term social and economic stability. Mario Draghi, the former President of the European Central Bank and former Italian Prime Minister, has issued a stark warning: without a strategic pivot toward computing power and data sovereignty, the continent risks becoming a mere consumer of foreign technology rather than a producer.

The productivity chasm between Europe and the US

The economic urgency driving this discourse is rooted in hard data. According to analysis shared by Draghi in the Financial Times, the productivity gap between the Eurozone and the United States has expanded dramatically. In 2018, the difference stood at 9 dollars per hour; by 2025, this figure surged to 21 dollars. This divergence is not merely a statistical anomaly but a symptom of systemic stagnation.

Since 2022, total factor productivity growth in Europe has remained virtually flat. Draghi suggests that the rapid adoption of AI could be the catalyst needed to break this deadlock, potentially adding between 0.3 and 0.4 percentage points to annual productivity growth. For an economy struggling to fund its social model and transition toward greener energy, these fractions of a percentage point represent the difference between decay and renewal.

Computing power as the new geopolitical currency

The ambition to leverage AI is currently colliding with a brutal physical reality: the lack of hardware. The disparity in computing capacity is staggering. The United States currently controls approximately 75% of the world's AI computing power, while the European Union accounts for less than 5%.

This deficit extends beyond mere server counts to the very foundation of the industry. European frontier laboratories are unable to compete financially with the massive capital injections seen in American and Chinese firms. Furthermore, the production of advanced semiconductors—the engines of AI—remains a critical weakness. Without the ability to process massive datasets locally and efficiently, Europe's strategic autonomy remains a theoretical concept rather than a practical reality.

Data sovereignty: Europe's last competitive stronghold

Despite the hardware deficit, Draghi argues that Europe possesses one critical asset: its data. In a landscape dominated by foreign hardware and models, data is the only sector where the EU can still exercise genuine sovereignty. The potential for growth here is immense, with the European Commission estimating that the data economy could exceed 800 billion euros by 2030, representing over 5% of the region's GDP.

To capitalize on this, the strategy must shift toward controlling the entire value chain of data storage and processing. This requires the development of large-scale, sovereign data centers that prevent European intelligence from being entirely dependent on foreign cloud providers. The goal is to create an ecosystem where AI can be deployed without the necessity of relying on foreign oligarchy, ensuring that growth does not come at the cost of values or security.

From strategic diagnosis to political delivery

The vision for a sovereign AI Europe is not unique to Draghi. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has echoed these sentiments, emphasizing that the fate of Europe must remain in European hands. However, a significant gap exists between the diagnosis of the problem and the delivery of solutions.

The challenge is primarily one of execution and political will. By July 2026, reports indicate that only 15.7% of the 383 recommendations proposed by Draghi to enhance competitiveness had been fully implemented. The European landscape remains fragmented by regulatory complexity and a lack of mobilized capital, making it difficult to scale the very innovations the EU claims to prioritize.

The Europe of tomorrow cannot choose between growth, sovereignty, and its values; it must find a way to integrate all three through the strategic mastery of AI.

The role of international players in the European market

While the EU pushes for sovereignty, the market continues to be shaped by global actors who see Europe as a vital hub for AI deployment. The presence of non-European firms highlights the interdependence of the current tech ecosystem. For instance, China Unicom Europe recently marked two decades of operations in London, showcasing AI-driven digital opportunities and cloud computing solutions to UK and European executives.

This duality defines the current European struggle: the need to collaborate with global leaders like Tencent or US-based cloud giants to maintain current operations, while simultaneously building the internal infrastructure necessary to avoid total dependence. The tension between utilizing existing global tools and building sovereign alternatives is the central conflict of the EU's tech policy.

Global implications for US and UK enterprises

For businesses operating in the USA and the UK, the EU's drive for AI sovereignty signals a shift in the regulatory and competitive landscape. While the US currently enjoys a dominant lead in computing power, a concerted European effort to secure data sovereignty could lead to more stringent requirements for data localization and processing within EU borders.

UK firms, positioned between the US's laissez-faire approach and the EU's structured regulatory environment, may find opportunities as intermediaries or partners in the EU's quest for data centers and computing infrastructure. However, the push for 'European sovereignty' suggests that the era of frictionless data flow may be tightening. US companies should anticipate a more competitive European market where the EU actively subsidizes local AI champions to reduce reliance on Silicon Valley. For the global entrepreneur, the key takeaway is that the EU is moving away from a purely regulatory role (as seen with the AI Act) toward an industrial policy aimed at active competition.

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Sources: Tgcom24, Msn, Corriere ·