Web Summit 2025 brought no shortage of bold announcements, but one conversation in particular captured a shift that has been quietly gaining momentum across Europe: digital sovereignty is no longer a defensive concept, it’s becoming a growth strategy.
In a fireside chat with the European Commission’s Executive Vice President for Technology, Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, Henna Virkkunen, the narrative was refreshingly clear: Europe is not trying to build walls. It is trying to build confidence, capacity and competitiveness – and that’s opening up new opportunities for innovators to scale up.
Here’s the strategic picture emerging.
1. Sovereignty is shifting from control to capability
If you strip away the policy language, the core idea is simple: the countries that master critical technologies will shape the next decade of economic and democratic stability.
What’s new is the tone. Europe is no longer framing sovereignty as protection against external threats but as the ability to build, scale and secure its own tech future. And the optimism feels earned.
Across AI, quantum, semiconductors and cybersecurity, Europe’s scientific base and rapidly maturing tech ecosystem are stronger than the narrative often suggests.
In other words, sovereignty is not about isolation; it’s about capability and readiness.
2. Europe wants to become the easiest place to build
A major theme of the session was simplification and not the cosmetic kind.
The Commission is preparing a digital simplification package designed to reduce friction for high-growth companies and SMEs by streamlining reporting obligations, simplifying data and cybersecurity rules, clarifying compliance pathways, and reducing bureaucracy across borders.
The goal is straightforward: regulation should protect values, not complicate growth. And for once, Europe is acting like a single market, not 27 separate ones.
3. Closing Europe’s biggest gap: scale
Europe doesn’t lack ideas, research strength or ambition, but scaling remains its Achilles’ heel. Fragmented markets and limited access to growth-stage capital still push many promising companies to the US.
To address this, the Commission is moving forward on three fronts:
- Establishing a Scale-Up Fund to support companies through their growth phase
- Advancing a Savings & Investment Union to unlock Europe’s €30 trillion in household capital
- Proposing a “28th Regime” that would allow businesses to operate across all member states under one unified set of rules.
These aren’t tweaks. They’re structural moves aimed at giving growing European companies and founders a real reason to stay, scale and compete globally from home.
4. Supercomputing and AI Factories will become Europe’s differentiator
One of the most significant announcements was the expansion of Europe’s AI supercomputing capacity.
Nineteen AI Factories across EU member states will form a network of high-performance computing hubs, giving companies unprecedented access to training and development resources.
Within a year, Europe’s supercomputing capacity is expected to increase fivefold.
This is a genuine competitive differentiator. Access to compute is one of the biggest barriers for advanced AI development globally and Europe is directly addressing it.
If Europe wants to lead in AI, this is exactly the kind of infrastructure that changes the game.
5. Talent attraction is becoming a priority, not a slogan
Europe’s tech ambitions won’t go far without people. So the Commission is taking a more active role in making the continent a magnet for talent. The Choose Europe initiative, targeting scientists and researchers, already saw far more international applicants than expected, including three times more from the US than previous cycles.
And the message is expanding: Europe wants founders, researchers, engineers and operators and is ready to compete for them.
This is the kind of confidence Europe has been lacking.
6. Procurement is becoming a strategic lever
A subtle but important part of the discussion: public procurement may become Europe’s most underestimated tool for strengthening its ecosystem. Governments, municipalities and EU institutions control enormous purchasing power.
If part of that demand is directed toward European technologies, not exclusively but intentionally, it could stabilise and accelerate entire sectors.
Not protectionism. Pragmatism. Because credibility isn’t built by funding alone; it’s also built by being the first customer.
The takeaway: Europe isn’t catching up, it’s setting the terms of its future
This fireside conversation didn’t present Europe as a continent scrambling behind the US or China. Instead, it positioned Europe as an architect, deliberately shaping its own ecosystem through strategic investment, simplification and sovereign capability. The tone was refreshingly confident.
Europe has the scientific strength and a deep bench of high-growth tech companies. It has the capital too – it now needs to unlock it. At the same time, Europe is putting in place the infrastructure that will shape the next wave of innovation, from expanded supercomputing power to a continent-wide network of AI Factories. And increasingly, it is treating simplicity as a strategic advantage in its own right.
The vision is simple: a Europe where innovators can build, scale and lead on home soil — not by chance, but by design. Web Summit showed that Europe’s next tech chapter won’t be reactive. It will be shaped deliberately, and the opportunities for scaleups have never looked more promising.
About the author
Giulia Goodwin is Associate Director at Tyto. Based in the south of France, Giulia is in charge of advising and managing a portfolio of clients seeking high-level visibility.