Dutch universities join efforts to move away from American tech

Universities in the Netherlands will collaborate more closely to achieve digital autonomy from big tech.

Dutch universities are establishing a committee dedicated to achieving digital autonomy, which will be chaired by former state secretary for digitalization, Alexandra van Huffelen.

The institutions will also strengthen their collaboration with SURF, the IT cooperative of Dutch education and research.

Universities say that growing dependence on a limited number of dominant market players creates vendor lock-in with unpredictable price increases, a lack of transparency, and difficulties in switching to other suppliers.

Additionally, they state that dependence on big tech results in a loss of control over digital infrastructure and data, as well as intellectual property.

Universities raise concerns about potential influence from both commercial parties and certain governments, stemming from an overreliance on tech giants, which also makes them more vulnerable during security and trade conflicts.

“As universities, we cannot wait for Europe or the Dutch government to take action – the sector must organize itself,” according to the University of the Netherlands statement, which Cybernews machine translated.

Dutch leading the fight for independent tech

The developments echo growing concerns about Europe’s overreliance on American technologies and efforts to achieve digital sovereignty.

The Netherlands is at the forefront of the independence bid, as the country has one of the highest adoption rates of digital sovereign infrastructure in Europe, according to the Nextcloud ranking.

In April 2026, the Dutch government announced plans to adopt a German cloud provider, STACKIT, marking a transition away from American giants like Google and Microsoft to reduce dependence on non-European providers.

Earlier this year, seven Dutch companies signed a landmark agreement aimed at making it easier for local cloud providers to win larger contracts that require multiple suppliers.

The agreement, among other things, involves a pledge to adopt the same open-source standards.

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