Europe’s Twin Dependencies: Building Energy and Digital Autonomy in a Fragmented World

This is precisely what cep experts Anselm Küsters and André Wolf demonstrate in their new study, published by the Italian think tank IAI (Istituto Affari Internazionali). According to the two authors, green energy and AI computing capacity follow similar economic logics: those who invest early win; those who wait will never catch up. Europe has waited too long in both areas.

In the energy sector, moving away from fossil fuels does not automatically lead to greater autonomy. New dependencies are emerging in relation to the raw materials and components needed for batteries, heat pumps and solar panels, most of which are sourced from China. In the digital sector, the situation is even clearer: of the 651 European tech companies surveyed in the study, just 32 are active in the field of AI and computing infrastructures – precisely the areas where the most is at stake geostrategically.

Küsters and Wolf are calling for a long-term autonomy strategy featuring proportionate regulatory incentives to boost European value creation, a circular economy for critical raw materials, and a soundly funded public AI initiative based on open source. Europe’s ability to act as a regulator should not be up for negotiation, neither with Washington nor with Beijing – but this requires a basic level of domestic capacity in the energy and digital sectors.