The founder of the new interactive map tracking European technological companies says some US-dominated fields have more local alternatives than he previously thought.
Soft-launched on February 17th, the map already lists 651 European tech companies across 44 countries, and it is calling for entrepreneurs to submit their listings.
The website eutechmap.com, launched by entrepreneur Dante Emilio Grassi, includes an interactive map of tech companies in each European country, as well as a directory that allows users to browse for direct alternatives to American products and services.
Users can choose from 75 categories, including email, cloud storage, and e-commerce services.
Grassi wrote in a LinkedIn post that categories many thought were “US-dominated” actually had over 10 European alternatives, while founders from countries like Estonia, Bulgaria, and Portugal are “building world-class tools.”
Every company listed on the map meets the following criteria: strategic autonomy, economic security, values alignment, collective resilience, and European innovation, according to the website.
“For decades, extraordinary technology has emerged from this continent. Yet our own institutions, businesses, and citizens remain unaware of its existence,” the website reads.
Pushback against Europe’s digital sovereignty
The map comes amid growing calls to sever Europe’s digital dependence on the US due to increasingly tense relations between Washington under the Donald Trump presidency and European capitals.
However, this may be easier said than done. American companies Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud are estimated to provide 70% of Europe’s cloud computing infrastructure.
The European Union attracts just 7% of global investment in artificial intelligence (AI), significantly lagging behind the US and China.
Europe, with its newfound urge for its digital sovereignty, has faced pushback from the US officials, who recently haven’t missed a chance to criticize – or threaten – its historical ally.
US National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross has called the idea that Trump could pull the plug on the internet “not a credible argument” and urged Europeans to wean off China rather than the US.
“There is a clean tech stack. It is primarily American. And then there is a Chinese tech stack,” Cairncross is quoted by Politico.
Meanwhile, individual EU states have already started replacing American technologies with local alternatives. France, for instance, recently announced ditching video conferencing tools Microsoft Teams and Zoom in favor of its own platform, Visio.
Germany’s northernmost state, Schleswig-Holstein, is migrating from Microsoft software to free, open-source solutions, while Denmark’s Ministry of Digital Affairs announced switching from Microsoft to LibreOffice.
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