Europe embraces Linux and open-source in the race for digital sovereignty

European countries are increasingly adopting Linux and open-source software to reclaim digital sovereignty and reduce reliance on US-based technology giants amid rising geopolitical tensions.

In a strategic pivot, Denmark and Germany are shifting away from US-based proprietary software and embracing open-source platforms.

This move isn’t only about cost, but about power, control, and independence in an unstable geopolitical tech landscape.

The trend is gaining momentum across Europe, and the main goal is digital sovereignty.

According to Chad Metcalf, chief architect at Continue, an open-source AI platform designed with sovereignty in mind, "Organizations should control their data and choose where their AI workloads run. Whether your drivers are cost optimization, IP protection, compliance requirements, or sovereignty concerns, the underlying need is the same – data ownership and deployment flexibility."

"Digital sovereignty represents one end of the spectrum of data control requirements that Continue was designed to address," Metcalf adds.

"For some organizations, sovereignty isn't just a preference – it's a business requirement. Continue's architecture naturally supports these use cases because it's exactly what the platform was built to solve."

Tensions are rising globally, and tech giants like Microsoft, OpenAI, and Google are increasingly acting as geopolitical agents. Take the story of Microsoft, when it blocked ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan’s access to his emails. This event prompted countries to rethink their technological dependencies.

"This incident shows us that the EU cannot trust US operating system providers," said Member of European Parliament Aura Salla at the time.

Sovereignty over convenience

Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein region is leading the way to the transition to open source. The Germans are doing this by replacing Microsoft Office suite with LibreOffice, SharePoint with Nextcloud, and Windows with Linux.

Denmark is a strong runner-up – the country is trying to ensure that critical cyber infrastructures can be controlled domestically and not in cloud services hosted in the US. For example, there are pilot projects for sovereign cloud setups, sometimes in collaboration with European cloud providers like OVHcloud.

Andalusia and Valencia (regions in Spain) have also followed with their own Linux-based projects, which further expanded the regional adoption of open-source Linux systems.

The country’s reasons behind this move is what Metcalf calls the "black box problem" – the inability to audit or modify proprietary AI systems.

“Organizations with sovereignty requirements need transparency and control over the entire AI stack”, he explains.

“This becomes particularly complex with AI code assistants because they process your organization’s most sensitive intellectual property – your codebase, development patterns, architectural decisions, and business logic.”

Both Germany and Denmark cite the US Cloud Act, which requires American companies to grant US authorities access to data stored abroad. Naturally, countries see this as a red flag, as it is fundamentally incompatible with the principle of being sovereign. Not to mention European digital sovereignty documents that say the American stance goes against what’s agreed on the old continent.

European providers like IONOS have warned previously that relying on US-hosted AI services exposes sensitive data to foreign jurisdiction, undermining control and security.

“Organizations with sovereignty requirements face several categories of risk when using foreign-hosted AI services,” Metcalf explains.

“The most direct risk is jurisdictional access. For many, this represents an unacceptable loss of control.”

Denmark, Spain, and Germany are not alone in this. France’s military is moving to open source within its defense infrastructure. Thousands of workstations have transitioned from Windows to Ubuntu Linux. India is developing its own open-source large language models for use in government, education, and military systems.

Any chance US tech can feel this financially?

Berlin-based search engine Ecosia says it has benefited from some customers' desire to avoid US counterparts like Microsoft's Bing or Google, which dominates web searches and is also the world's biggest email provider.

"The worse it gets, the better it is for us," founder Christian Kroll said of Ecosia, whose sales pitch is that it spends its profits on environmental projects.

Similarweb data shows the number of queries directed to Ecosia from the European Union has risen 27% year-on-year and the company says it has 1% of the German search engine market.

But its 122 million visits from the 27 EU countries in February were dwarfed by 10.3 billion visits to Google, whose parent Alphabet made revenues of about $100 billion from Europe, the Middle East and Africa in 2024 – nearly a third of its $350 billion global turnover.

Non-profit Ecosia earned 3.2 million euros ($3.65 million) in April, of which 770,000 euros was spent on planting 1.1 million trees.

Google declined to comment for this story.

Reuters could not determine whether major US tech companies have lost any market share to local rivals in Europe.