Imagine the internet suddenly stops working. Payment systems in your local food store go down. Healthcare systems in the regional hospital flatline. Your work software tools, and all the information they contain, disappear.

You reach out for information but struggle to communicate with family and friends, or to get the latest updates on what is happening, as social media platforms are all down. Just as someone can pull the plug on your computer, it’s possible to shut down the system it connects to.

This isn’t an outlandish scenario. Technical failures, cyber-attacks and natural disasters can all bring down key parts of the internet. And as the US government makes increasing demands of European leaders, it is possible to imagine Europe losing access to the digital infrastructure provided by US firms as part of the geopolitical bargaining process.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the EU’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, has highlighted the “structural imperative” for Europe to “build a new form of independence” – including in its technological capacity and security. And, in fact, moves are already being made across the continent to start regaining some independence from US technology.

A small number of US-headquartered big tech companies now control a large proportion of the world’s cloud computing infrastructure, that is the global network of remote servers that store, manage and process all our apps and data. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud are reported to hold about 70% of the European market, while European cloud providers have only 15%.

My research supports the idea that relying on a few global providers increases vulnerabilty for Europe’s private and public sectors – including the risk of cloud computing disruption, whether caused by technical issues, geopolitical disputes or malicious activity.

Two recent examples – both the result of apparent technical failures – were the hours‑long AWS incident in October 2025, which disrupted thousands of services such as banking apps across the world, and the major Cloudflare incident two months later, which took LinkedIn, Zoom and other communication platforms offline.

The impact of a major power disruption on cloud computing services was also demonstrated when Spain, Portugal and some of south-west France endured a massive power cut in April 2025.

EU president Ursula von der Leyen urges greater European independence in response to ‘seismic change’. Video: Guardian News.

What happens in a digital blackout?

There are signs that Europe is starting to take the need for greater digital independence more seriously. In the Swedish coastal city of Helsingborg, for example, a one-year project is testing how various public services would function in the scenario of a digital blackout.

Would elderly people still receive their medical prescriptions? Can social services continue to provide care and benefits to all the city’s residents?

This pioneering project seeks to quantify the full range of human, technical and legal challenges that a collapse of technical services would create, and to understand what level of risk is acceptable in each sector. The aim is to build a model of crisis preparedness that can be shared with other municipalities and regions later this year.

Elsewhere in Europe, other forerunners are taking action to strengthen their digital sovereignty by weaning themselves off reliance on global big tech companies – in part through collaboration and adoption of open source software. This technology is treated as a digital public good that can be moved between different clouds and operated under sovereign conditions.

In northern Germany, the state of Schleswig-Holstein has made perhaps the clearest break with digital dependency. The state government has replaced most of its Microsoft-powered computer systems with open-source alternatives, cancelling nearly 70% of its licenses. Its target is to use big tech services only in exceptional cases by the end of the decade.

Across France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy, governments are investing both nationally and transnationally in the development of digital open-source platforms and tools for chat, video and document management – akin to digital Lego bricks that administrations can host on their own terms.

In Sweden, a similar system for chat, video and online collaboration, developed by the National Insurance Agency, runs in domestic data centres rather than foreign clouds. It is being offered as a service for Swedish public authorities looking for sovereign digital alternatives.

Your choices matter

For Europe – and any nation – to meaningfully address the risks posed by digital blackout and cloud collapse, digital infrastructure needs to be treated with the same seriousness as physical infrastructure such as ports, roads and power grids.

Control, maintenance and crisis preparedness of digital infrastructure should be seen as core public responsibilities, rather than something to be outsourced to global big tech firms, open for foreign influence.

To encourage greater focus on digital resilience among its member states, the EU has developed a cloud sovereignty framework to guide procurement of cloud services – with the intention of keeping European data under European control. The upcoming Cloud and AI Development Act is expected to bring more focus and resources to this area.

Governments and private companies should be encouraged to demand security, openness and interoperability when seeking bids for provision of their cloud services – not merely low prices. But in the same way, as individuals, we can all make a difference with the choices we make.

Just as it’s advisable to ensure your own access to food, water and medicine in a time of crisis, be mindful of what services you use personally and professionally. Consider where your emails, personal photos and conversations are stored. Who can access and use your data, and under what conditions? How easily can everything be backed up, retrieved and transferred to another service?

No country, let alone continent, will ever be completely digitally independent, and nor should they be. But by pulling together, Europe can ensure its digital systems remain accessible even in a crisis – just as is expected from its physical infrastructure.