The Register's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols argues that unpredictability from Donald Trump's administration is accelerating a genuine push towards "digital sovereignty" across Europe and beyond, as governments and businesses seek to reduce dependence on American software giants and cloud providers. He contrasts this growing momentum with the UK's continued reliance on US technology, suggesting Britain has been slower to act despite facing the same risks as its European neighbours.

The piece cites several concrete examples: the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern replacing Microsoft SharePoint with Nextcloud and OpenProject, with Bavaria following a similar path, and Ireland scrapping a Microsoft procurement potentially worth €1 billion after opposition politicians questioned why open-source alternatives were never considered. Irish officials, including Government CIO Louise McKeever, described digital sovereignty as a national security issue, while opposition figures suggested alternatives such as LibreOffice and Linux. Airbus was also highlighted for moving critical applications from AWS to French provider Scaleway to keep sensitive data under European control, illustrating that the sovereignty drive extends beyond governments into major private enterprises.