Will Europe Stay Behind the Innovation Curve?

Dr. Lior Tabansky, Head of Research Programs at our center presents his commentary on Europe's geopolitical competition with USA and China

Knowledge drives productivity and economic growth. Data are, in the least, a vital resource for every instrument of power.

Reluctantly, Europeans acknowledge their profound dependencies on foreign, de-facto American, digital infrastructure. The US and China hold over 90% of the 70 largest digital platforms' market value and control 75% of the cloud computing market. Both nations leverage this for the geopolitical contest.

Digital sovereignty for Europe is now vogue in Brussels. How can Europe increase its control? By "control," I mean here the ability to:

  1. inspect and detect abuse of digital data, and
  2. correct, if necessary unilaterally, the noncompliance.

European officials place high hopes on regulation, including the GDPR regime, anti-trust rulings, and data localization. I argue that the nature of data precludes effective control via regulation. The root of the problem that data, information, and knowledge differ from other "things."

Read more here.

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