Europe's AI Independence Day: How the EU's €1 Billion "Apply AI Strategy" Declares Digital Sovereignty from the US and China

The European Union is launching its ambitious “Apply AI strategy,” a comprehensive plan designed to secure digital sovereignty and significantly reduce the bloc’s technological reliance on foreign providers, particularly the US and China. This initiative seeks to strengthen “EU AI sovereignty” by accelerating the development and use of homemade artificial intelligence technologies.

The strategy emphasizes positioning AI not just as a productivity tool, but as a “strategic asset” that must be tightly integrated across the EU’s institutional, industrial, and security systems.

A core justification for this shift is the warning that “external dependencies of the AI stack”—referring to the underlying software and infrastructure needed to build and train AI applications— “can be weaponised” by state and non-state actors, thereby posing a risk to critical supply chains. Concerns regarding Europe’s reliance on American technology have increased, especially following Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency.

To execute the strategy's goals, the European Commission is mobilizing €1 billion from existing financing programs. The strategy highlights the need to improve AI usage and adoption across vital sectors, including manufacturing, healthcare, and defence.

Crucially, the EU is prioritizing the implementation of European AI-enabled tools in its defence systems, reacting to the threat from Russia and fears of potential US disengagement from European security. This includes plans to accelerate the development and deployment of European AI-enabled command and control (C2) capacities. C2 systems are critical enablers used for instructing troops and managing battlefield operations, areas where European militaries currently rely heavily on the US through Nato. The commission is also pushing for the development of sovereign frontier models specifically for space defence technology.

Although Europe hosts promising AI companies, such as the French model maker Mistral and the German defence tech group Helsing, the EU currently remains dependent on the US and Asia for the necessary hardware, software, and critical minerals needed for AI development. The strategy aims to mitigate this reliance by having public administrations play a central role in stimulating demand for European-made open source AI solutions, helping start-ups to grow. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen stated the goal is to “speed up AI adoption across the board” to ensure Europe does not miss out on this revolutionary technology.