Digital Awakening in Europe: Why We Must Become Independent Now

Europe is at a digital turning point. Since the re-election of American President Donald J. Trump at the latest, this realization has reached the broader public. For decades, an unspoken dogma prevailed: anyone wanting to make an impact in the digital world couldn’t avoid the major US tech giants. Whether it was cloud services, operating systems, or collaboration tools – Europe voluntarily entered into technological dependence in many areas. And hardly anyone saw a problem with that. From a European perspective, there was always a certain understanding of the so-called American Dream, an admiration for how Americans “just get things done.” It even felt good to be part of that world. It never really felt like dependence.

Those days are over. Political tensions, experiences with fragile supply chains, and the growing understanding that control over data also means political power (why are the CEOs of big tech companies suddenly so close to the government?) are amplifying calls for digital independence across Europe. With the EU Data Act and EU AI Act now in effect, Brussels has made it clear: Europe wants to take the wheel in shaping the digital future—together.

Dependence That Hurts

A recent article in Der Spiegel aptly captured the dilemma: “The Entry into the Exit – Europe’s Dependence on US Tech Companies. What Alternatives Are There to US Digital Technology?” The short answer, according to Patrick Beuth’s article: very few. While the political will for greater digital autonomy is clearly expressed, implementation often lacks consistency.
One thing I keep noticing in my research: the EU is pretty good at drafting regulations (often aimed at the “bad guys” from the US), but not so great at simultaneously creating fertile innovation environments with clear legal frameworks and quick access to funding. Meh. Not really.

So, the status quo: many public institutions and companies still rely on Microsoft 365, AWS, or Google Cloud – despite data protection concerns and growing geopolitical uncertainties. But not out of malice, rather because there are virtually no alternatives. At least not yet.

An Open Letter to Ursula von der Leyen: Industry Finally Puts on the Pressure

A clear signal came from the industry itself in early 2025. In an open letter to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, over ninety companies – including Airbus, Siemens, Dassault Systèmes, and many others – demanded more support for European providers of key digital technologies.
Specifically, the demand is for alternatives in markets such as cloud infrastructure, platform tech (e.g., social media), networking and edge technologies, AI, cybersecurity and cryptography, as well as interoperability standards and open protocols to foster transparency.

The Legal Milestones: Data Act and AI Act

As mentioned, regulation is one of the EU’s strengths. Accordingly, in 2024, the EU delivered on the legislative front in the debate around more transparency, independence, and user rights in the digital world. The EU Data Act (2023/2854) and the EU AI Act (2024/1689) are two legal frameworks that will fundamentally reshape the rules of Europe’s digital future.

The Data Act: Returning data sovereignty to the users. The regulation requires companies to give users access to their self-generated data – for example, from IoT devices, smart cars, and other machines, especially smartphones and laptops. Switching between cloud services is also to be drastically simplified, aiming to prevent so-called vendor lock-ins – that stranglehold of hurdles keeping users tied to a platform when they try to switch quickly and easily. In short: data generated by users should not disappear into a company’s black box but remain portable, transparent, and interoperable.

The AI Act: AI at the service of humans, meaning regulation based on a risk-based model. High-risk AI (e.g., in medicine, justice, or education) is subject to strict requirements regarding transparency, documentation, and the “human-in-the-loop” principle.What unites both laws: they make technical trustworthiness and user control the norm – not the exception. Thumbs up.

Yes, thumbs up, but let’s not turn a blind eye to implementation. Many companies now face the question of how to comply with these requirements without sacrificing their ability to innovate or spending vast sums on legal and technical consultancy.
What’s needed are technologies—a toolbox, really—that are designed from the ground up with the principles of the Data Act and AI Act in mind, alongside values like democratic participation, openness, transparency, and security.

At 1io, we’ve been working on such a solution for years: COKIT. The vision behind it can best be described as a universal toolkit for building a new kind of European digital collaboration.

COKIT is being developed as a decentralized software development kit (SDK) with the goal of rethinking digital collaboration. Sovereign, open, interoperable, and compliant – just as the new regulations demand. The only way to achieve that is through open source and a nonprofit-driven foundation.
COKIT provides the technical foundation for applications in which data is processed locally, allowing users to retain control and enabling communication without central authorities. The “data trail” remains minimal from the outset.

This also brings a welcome side effect. To understand it, you have to look under the hood. Instead of storing data in centralized server farms (often outside Europe), COKIT uses a local-first architecture. Every application built on COKIT stores its data directly on the user's device. Synchronization with others happens peer-to-peer and end-to-end encrypted. No central authority has access to the data traffic.

The aforementioned central authority? Data centers that consume massive amounts of energy. And here’s the side effect: peer-to-peer saves energy. A lot of energy. Imagine a smart city app that connects traffic data, sensor data, and citizen feedback. With COKIT, citizens could store and selectively share their data locally, administrations and third parties could collaborate without a central platform, AI models for traffic optimization could run locally on edge devices—bypassing latency issues—and the whole thing would be fully transparent and privacy-compliant.

The legal foundations for digital sovereignty “made in Europe” are in place. Industry is signaling its readiness to forge its own path. Now we need technologies that make this path viable. That’s where we builders come in. COKIT isn’t a workaround or a patch. It is the key to the key technologies called for in the open letter to the EU.

Copying the American model in Europe won’t be enough to achieve digital sovereignty. We need a radically decentralized approach that puts users at the center and forefront of key decisions. Digital sovereignty begins with political will, is supported by smart regulation – and ultimately requires technologies that enable trust, control, and collaboration.

Europe can and must digitally reinvent itself – the tools are here, and they’re not just coming from 1io.
The open letter to Brussels proves it. The time to act is now.