Capgemini CEO dismisses calls for full European tech autonomy

By Leo Marchandon

Feb 13 (Reuters) – Capgemini CEO Aiman Ezzat on Friday dismissed calls for a total technological sovereignty in Europe, at a time when fraying ‌transatlantic relations have stoked concerns about the region’s dependence on U.S. tech majors.

The ‌French IT services group, which serves government agencies, critical‑infrastructure operators and large regulated enterprises, is positioning itself as a ​bridge between Brussels’ sovereignty ambitions and the reality of U.S.-dominated cloud infrastructure.

The balancing act reflects a central tension in European tech policy: how to build a fully autonomous technology stack to reduce dependence on American giants like Amazon, Google and Microsoft?

“There is no such thing as ‌absolute sovereignty,” Ezzat told journalists in ⁠a post-earnings call. “Nobody has it, because no one has sovereignty over the entire value chain required to deliver services.”

Ezzat, who chairs the digital ⁠working group at the European Round Table for Industry, said he had been discussing the issue with the European Commission in Brussels and at Davos, and that the Commission largely shared his ​views.

He ​said digital autonomy follows a four-layer framework of ​data, operations, regulation and technology, and ‌the current talks focus on finding the right balance between sovereignty requirements and enabling businesses to adopt artificial intelligence technology to remain globally competitive.

On the first three levels, Europe already has independence, but the dominance of U.S. Big Tech means there is no complete independence on a technological level, Ezzat added.

Rather than pursue full autonomy, he said European nations should ‌be seeking “the right sovereignty solution based on the use ​case, the client environment, the government”.

Partnerships with European ​AI firms like France-based Mistral are examples ​of this gradual progress, Ezzat said.

Capgemini has signed partnerships with U.S. ‌hyperscalers AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft to ​deliver what it calls “sovereign” ​AI solutions, cloud services provided by a European-based company while running on American infrastructure.

The French group is also navigating its own reputational challenges around government contracting. Earlier this ​month, it said it would ‌sell U.S. subsidiary Capgemini Government Solutions after a public backlash over its $4.8 million ​contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for data analysis work.

(Reporting by ​Leo Marchandon in Gdansk; editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak.)