EU to invest €1.3 billion in digital identity wallet, AI, cybersecurity

The EU Commission has allocated €1.3 billion ($1.4 billion) for technological investment that it sees as “strategically important” for the future of the continent.

The investment will drive the Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL) work programme for 2025 through 2027. While that’s the umbrella for various technologies, tech sovereignty is the aim as the EU seeks to become more competitive with powers such as the U.S. and China.

“Securing European tech sovereignty starts with investing in advanced technologies and in making it possible for people to improve their digital competences,” said Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy.

She continued: “With the opportunities under the Digital Europe Programme, we are ensuring that new technologies – and with them new potential – reach European citizens, businesses and public administrations.”

Priorities under the DIGITAL work programme include generative AI applications, with consideration of the health and care sectors, and testing “immersive environments” otherwise known as virtual worlds. Boosting cyber resilience by targeting cybersecurity solutions; facilitating the EU Digital Identity Wallet architecture and the European Trust Infrastructure, and promoting its adoption in member states; and developing digital skills by boosting EU education and training institutions’ capacity.

In addition, support for the European Digital Innovation Hubs (EDIHs) is a priority as this network of hubs will provide companies and the public sector with access to technical expertise and technology testing, and which will promote the employment of AI around Europe. There will be funds for Destination Earth, an award-winning initiative that is building a digital twin of the Earth to support climate adaptation and disaster risk management, to build an even more powerful model.

Funds will also go towards stimulating the development of “efficient, high-quality, interoperable” digital public services. Innovations across these priorities will be accelerated with the new Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP), which awards the STEP Seal quality label to “promising projects” that’ll boost their standing for access to public and private funding.

Under the current Multiannual Financial Framework (2021-2027) the total budget is €8.1 billion ($8.7 billion) and includes other EU funding initiatives such as Horizon Europe, EU4Health, InvestEU, and the Connecting Europe Facility. The first calls for proposals for the DIGITAL work programme are expected to launch this month, with additional funding opportunities coming throughout this year.

Partnering with India could amplify EU tech sovereignty, think tank argues

As tensions between the EU and the Trump administration underline the dangers of the EU’s reliance on U.S. technology, analysts are exploring whether India could inspire and partner the EU in its goal for tech sovereignty.

Chloe Teevan and Gautam Kamath, head of digital economy and governance at think tank ECDPM and an independent consultant and associate with ECDPM, respectively, co-write on the shared aims of the EU and other global powers like India and Brazil that are concerned by technological dependence on the United States.

The authors mention the seminal September 2024 Draghi report on EU competitiveness, which has helped to drive EU urgency on the matter, which emphasized developing advanced technologies. Not long after, the EuroStack initiative was launched from Brussels which calls for a new European approach to tech infrastructures “across the technology stack” from hard infrastructure to software platforms.

“Indeed, other countries have already had great success in building parts of the stack and their successes could be important learning opportunities for the EU,” the authors write.

“Most notably, India’s digital public infrastructure – composed of digital ID, digital payments, data exchange and most recently a new e-commerce layer, the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) – provides universally accessible public and private digital services to its population of nearly 1.4 billion people.”

They observe that by building this “interim layer” of digital infrastructure from the ground up, in partnership with the private sector, and by using it to connect public and private services, India demonstrated that this infrastructural approach to digital services could be rolled out at scale.

On February 28, the EU and India agreed to cooperate across multiple parts of the digital stack, but a “wider exchange” is needed, the authors argue. The full post can be found on the London School of Economics’ blog here.

Linux Foundation Europe launches European digital sovereignty initiative

The Linux Foundation Europe has launched the NeoNephos Foundation, which will focus on collaboration and innovation in open cloud infrastructure and European digital sovereignty.

“Linux Foundation Europe is proud to support the launch of NeoNephos, which represents a significant step forward in supporting Europe’s cloud sovereignty goals through open source,” said Gabriele Columbro, general manager of Linux Foundation Europe.

The aim will be to develop open, interoperable technologies for the needs of European companies and governments. Founding members of the NeoNephos Foundation include Clyso, Cyberus Technology, Deutsche Telekom, SAP, TNO – ECOFED and 23 Technologies GmbH. NeoNephos is one of the first open-source outcomes of the EU investment program IPCEI-CIS.

Article Topics

cybersecurity  |  EU  |  EU Digital Identity Wallet  |  Europe  |  EuroStack  |  Linux Foundation  |  NeoNephos  |  research and development