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

(www.zdnet.com)
245 points CrankyBear | 3 comments | 31 Oct 25 16:39 UTC | HN request time: 0.464s | source
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mentalgear ◴[31 Oct 25 17:38 UTC] No.45774588[source]▶
Why would ANY global business still rely on U.S. Tech? The U.S. government, through their executive orders and dissolving of the separations of powers, has demonstrated its ability to unilaterally disrupt or shut down private technology services at will. How can any business justify depending on U.S.-based tech infrastructure when its access could vanish overnight on a political whim by an unstable president?

If there is no rule of law, capital, talent and trust are flowing out of that country - for good reason.

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graemep ◴[31 Oct 25 18:00 UTC] No.45774835[source]▶
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.

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1. isodev ◴[31 Oct 25 18:59 UTC] No.45775464[source]▶
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.
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2. DaSHacka ◴[01 Nov 25 07:49 UTC] No.45779915[source]▶
> 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)

3. graemep ◴[01 Nov 25 10:11 UTC] No.45780529[source]▶
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.