, Columnist
Macron and Merkel Are Caught in a New Cold War
The race for tech supremacy between the U.S. and China has driven Europe to look for “data sovereignty.” It can’t win a head-on battle in this field.
If data really is the new oil, then Europe isn’t pumping enough.
Photographer: JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFPThis article is for subscribers only.
“Technological sovereignty” is one of the European Union’s buzzwords of the moment, conjuring up an image of a safe and secure space for zettabytes of home-grown data, free from interference or capture by the U.S. and China.
Both France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Angela Merkel have used the phrase to kick-start all sorts of initiatives, from artificial intelligence programs to state-backed cloud computing. The new European Commission president Ursula Von der Leyen has etched the concept into her political guidelines.