Bitkom on the new European alliances for cloud and semiconductors

Berlin, 19 July 2021 - On Monday, the European Commission announced the official launch of two alliances for data, edge and cloud, and for semiconductors and microelectronics. Bitkom Chief Executive Dr. Bernhard Rohleder states:

"Europe must become a strong, self-confident, digitally sovereign player on the global market - this is an important lesson from the experience of the Corona crisis. This means that we must become more competitive, develop technological capacities and reduce dependencies. Bitkom therefore expressly welcomes the fact that semiconductors and cloud and edge technologies have been identified as strategically important sectors and that the EU wants to promote industrial capacities and the resilience of value chains in the EU with the new alliances.

Semiconductors are the basis for almost all future digital technologies and have increasingly been the subject of international trade conflicts, recently. Cloud technologies, in turn, constitute the basis of digital applications and digital business models. Cloud and microelectronics play a central role in ending Europe's unilateral dependencies. The public sector and the economy in Europe need trustworthy, high-performance and secure technologies and applications as the basis for the digital transformation of the economy, society and public administration. The overarching goal must now be to strengthen the best technologies in the EU according to these criteria. In order to remain competitive in global markets, the EU must join forces to make the necessary investments in applications as well as research and development here in Europe. It is crucial that these new alliances do not remain a mere declaration of intent, but instead make an essential contribution to Europe's digital sovereignty."