Overview
- Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Emmanuel Macron endorsed scaling Europe-based cloud, compute and AI, proposing a joint German–French taskforce and shared procurement criteria for so‑called sovereign digital services.
- EU Commissioner Henna Virkkunen previewed a consolidated rulebook with simplified GDPR and AI provisions and a likely one‑year deferral for high‑risk AI obligations, with publication expected Wednesday and potential DMA action on dominant cloud providers.
- Companies announced 18 cooperation deals worth about €1 billion alongside major infrastructure plans, including the Schwarz‑Group’s €11 billion data‑centre project tied to Europe’s planned AI gigafactories.
- Public administrations were urged to adopt open‑source stacks such as Germany’s openDesk and France’s La Suite, with the state positioned as an anchor customer and 75 German firms pledging support for the EUDI‑Wallet initiative.
- Privacy advocates criticized the deregulatory push, warning that easing data and AI safeguards could weaken citizens’ rights as negotiations move to the EU level.