Artificial intelligence and EU security: the false promise of digital sovereignty

EU Digital Sovereignty has emerged as a priority for the EU Cyber Agenda to build free and safe, yet resilient cyberspace. In a traditional regulatory fashion, the EU has therefore sought to gain more control over third country-based digital intermediaries through legislative solutions regulating its internal market. Although potentially effective in shielding EU citizens from data exploitation by internet giants, this protectionist strategy tells us little about the EU’s ability to develop Digital Sovereignty, beyond its capacity to react to the external tech industry. Given the growing hybridisation of warfare, building on the increasing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in the security domain, leadership in advancing AI-related technology has a significant impact on countries’ defence capacity. By framing AI as the intrinsic functioning of algorithms, data mining and computational capacity, we question what tools the EU could rely on to gain sovereignty in each of these dimensions of AI. By focusing on AI from an EU Foreign Policy perspective, we conclude that contrary to the growing narrative, given the absence of a leading AI industry and a coherent defence strategy, the EU has few tools to become a global leader in advancing standards of AI beyond its regulatory capacity.