Another European agency shifts off US Tech as digital sovereignty gains steam

They do though, and they are happy to.

A very small number of government agencies in a few countries have moved away from reliance on the US, but very few businesses have. We still have governments and businesses encouraging the use of US tech by, for example, encouraging use of mobile apps. AWS, Azure and Google dominate cloud services in most of the world. Microsoft dominates the desktop. Businesses and individuals are increasingly reliant on cloud apps that are mostly American.

Here in the UK my daughter's school (a large sixth for college) relies in MS cloud versions of Office and on Teams, you need (at least in my area) to use an mobile app, or a web app hosted on AWS to make an appointment with a GP (and if you are prescribed medication the pharmacy are informed via an API running in AWS). Most SMEs that do run anything of their own use AWS. One of the biggest banks (Lloyds) had issues during the recent AWS outage, and I know they are not the only one to use AWS.

A lot of European governments are pushing ID and age verification mobile apps.

In general a lot of governments are regulating in ways that favour the incumbents.

Not to mention 95% of all mobile app installs are through App stores controlled by 2 US companies.

But to change these things within the past 7 or 8 months would have been impossible. I get what you guys are saying but there's so much of this stuff that is very entrenched and there's decades of inertia to push against, it can't just happen overnight. The story isn't that no one uses American services anymore, it's that fewer and fewer of us feel comfortable doing so and are open to or actively seeking alternatives in a way we never expected to be.

I think it’s important to focus on the momentum. It’s not easy to redesign and re-engineer systems that have taken years and decades to develop and span many layers of integrations. There is also the issue of retraining as everyone is happily used to whatever system they currently have. It’s unfortunate the US decided to go back in time rather than look to the future but eventually, very few (if any) services would rely on US corps.

Okay? How does that change anything?

It does not change the situation instantly, but it changes the direction of History, and these changes add up over time.

Trump, of course, is an unstable person, but why does everyone see the other side as any different? To many of us, they are sides of the same coin - and this, by the way, is more or less reflected in the similar lifestyles they lead. Elite politicians attend elite schools, democrat republican or otherwise. So it puzzles me that only now it's common to be skeptical of the US. Better now than never I guess, but I don't think it's true that Trump is somehow worse than his predecessor. The predecessors are just outwardly nicer. Nice vs kind, etc.

My point is what you’re saying is so obvious, I’m not sure why you’re saying it.

> It’s unfortunate the US decided to go back in time rather than look to the future but eventually, very few (if any) services would rely on US corps.

I was unaware the country travelled back in time!

Surely you have a specific example of a way in which U.S. based technology companies have significantly and irrefutively regressed to demonstrate your point, since you appear to talk as though it's a foretold conclusion this delusion will come to pass.

Has the same energy as the people shouting "the death of Silicon Valley is neigh!!!" whenever a random washed-up company mkves their HQ from the Bay area to some tax haven state (and half the time retains their offices and personnel in SV anyway)

Do you think the smartphone app store duopoly is not obvious to everyone in this site? Why did you mention it?

I think the momentum is to greater reliance on the US, not lesser:

Cashless payments around the world, mostly dominated by American companies.

A general move to doing everything on mobile apps. This includes many governments pushing mobile apps for ID, age verification, etc.

Cloud versions of MS Office replacing desktop versions is FAR more common than people moving to other office software.

Even the EU's regulation supposed to provide cloud sovereignty seem to have been designed to favour the bit American suppliers: https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/27/cispe_eu_sovereignty_...

At the same time American companies are increasing their control over their established base. MS accounts needed to log in to Windows. Google eliminating other app stores. The move from desktop to phones for most users.

Most businesses are still moving to a range of American dominated cloud things. Not just hyperscalers, but SaaS is also American dominated.

The very fact that moving just 1,200 people to NextCloud is such big news underlines just how small the movement the other way is. This is despite continued reliance on Outlook and Teams!

The only way I see the grip of the US loosening a little bit is if continued outages persuade people they cannot rely on the hyperscalers to such extent there is a more back to on-prem and smaller suppliers, however the US has unshakeable and increasing control of end-point device.

No one even plans to change that or has any idea how to.

As the GP said, almost all mobile apps are installed from stores run by two American companies (who also effectively control the devices) and the trend is very much to greater reliance on these devices, not less.

We may not like it, but its not going to change.

Because you seemed to be unaware of it?