The chief executive of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, has said India can play a central role in guiding global responses to the security and economic risks linked to AI.
Speaking at the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, he argued that the world’s largest democracy is well placed to become a partner and leader in shaping the responsible development of advanced systems.
Amodei explained that Anthropic hopes to work with India on the testing and evaluation of models for safety and security. He stressed growing concern over autonomous behaviours that may emerge in advanced systems and noted the possibility of misuse by individuals or governments.
He pointed to the work of international and national AI safety institutes as a foundation for joint efforts and added that the economic effect of AI will be significant and that India and the wider Global South could benefit if policymakers prepare early.
Through its Economic Futures programme and Economic Index, Anthropic studies how AI reshapes jobs and labour markets.
He said the company intends to expand information sharing with Indian authorities and bring economists, labour groups, and officials into regular discussions to guide evidence-based policy instead of relying on assumptions.
Amodei said AI is set to increase economic output and that India is positioned to influence emerging global frameworks. He signalled a strong interest in long-term cooperation that supports safety, security, and sustainable growth.
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Institutions, researchers, and media organisations in the EU are intensifying efforts to use AI to counter disinformation, even as concerns grow about the wider impact on media freedom and public trust.
Confidence in journalism has fallen sharply across the EU, a trend made more severe by the rapid deployment of AI systems that reshape how information circulates online.
Brussels is attempting to respond with a mix of regulation and strategic investment. The EU’s AI Act is entering its implementation phase, supported by the AI Continent Action Plan and the Apply AI Strategy, both introduced in 2025 to improve competitiveness while protecting rights.
Yet manipulation campaigns continue to spread false narratives across platforms in multiple languages, placing pressure on journalists, fact-checkers and regulators to act with greater speed and precision.
Within such an environment, AI4TRUST has emerged as a prominent Horizon Europe initiative. The consortium is developing an integrated platform that detects disinformation signals, verifies content, and maps information flows for professionals who need real-time insight.
Partners stress the need for tools that strengthen human judgment instead of replacing it, particularly as synthetic media accelerates and shared realities become more fragile.
Experts speaking in Brussels warned that traditional fact-checking cannot absorb the scale of modern manipulation. They highlighted the geopolitical risks created by automated messaging and deepfakes, and argued for transparent, accountable systems tailored to user needs.
European officials emphasised that multiple tools will be required, supported by collaboration across institutions and sustained regulatory frameworks that defend democratic resilience.
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AI is reshaping the expectations placed on organisations, yet many local governments in the US continue to rely on procurement systems designed for a paper-first era.
Sealed envelopes, manual logging and physical storage remain standard practice, even though these steps slow essential services and increase operational pressure on staff and vendors.
The persistence of paper is linked to long-standing compliance requirements, which are vital for public accountability. Over time, however, processes intended to safeguard fairness have created significant inefficiencies.
Smaller businesses frequently struggle with printing, delivery, and rigid submission windows, and the administrative burden on procurement teams expands as records accumulate.
The author’s experience leading a modernisation effort in Somerville, Massachusetts showed how deeply embedded such practices had become.
Gradual adoption of digital submission reduced logistical barriers while strengthening compliance. Electronic bids could be time-stamped, access monitored, and records centrally managed, allowing staff to focus on evaluation rather than handling binders and storage boxes.
Vendor participation increased once geographical and physical constraints were removed. The shift also improved resilience, as municipalities that had already embraced digital procurement were better equipped to maintain continuity during pandemic disruptions.
Electronic records now provide a basis for responsible use of AI. Digital documents can be analysed for anomalies, metadata inconsistencies, or signs of manipulation that are difficult to detect in paper files.
Rather than replacing human judgment, such tools support stronger oversight and more transparent public administration. Modernising procurement aligns government operations with present-day realities and prepares them for future accountability and technological change.
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The European Commission has proposed changes to the GDPR and the EU AI Act as part of its Digital Omnibus Package, seeking to clarify how personal data may be processed for AI development and operation across the EU.
A new provision would recognise AI development and operation as a potential legitimate interest under the GDPR, subject to necessity and a balancing test. Controllers in the EU would still need to demonstrate safeguards, including data minimisation, transparency and an unconditional right to object.
The package also introduces a proposed legal ground for processing sensitive data in AI systems where removal is not feasible without disproportionate effort. Claims that strict conditions would apply, requiring technical protections and documentation throughout the lifecycle of AI models in the EU.
Further amendments would permit biometric data processing for identity verification under defined conditions and expand the rules allowing sensitive data to be used for bias detection beyond high-risk AI systems.
Overall, the proposals aim to provide greater legal certainty without overturning existing data protection principles. The EU lawmakers and supervisory authorities continue to debate the proposals before any final adoption.
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Derived from the Latin word ‘superanus’, through the French word ‘souveraineté’, sovereignty can be understood as: ‘the ultimate overseer, or authority, in the decision-making process of the state and in the maintenance of order’ – Britannica. Digital sovereignty, specifically European digital sovereignty, refers to ‘Europe’s ability to act independently in the digital world’.
In 2020, the European Parliament already identified the consequences of reliance on non-EU technologies. From the economic and social influence of non-EU technology companies, which can undermine user control over their personal data, to the slow growth of the EU technology companies and a limitation on the enforcement of European laws.
Today, these concerns persist. From Romanian election interference on TikTok’s platform, Microsoft’s interference with the ICC, to the Dutch government authentication platform being acquired by a US firm, and booming American and Chinese LLMs compared to European LLMs. The EU is at a crossroads between international reliance and homegrown adoption.
The issue of the EU digital sovereignty has gained momentum in the context of recent and significant shifts in US foreign policy toward its allies. In this environment, the pursuit of the EU digital sovereignty appears as a justified and proportionate response, one that might previously have been perceived as unnecessarily confrontational.
In light of this, this analysis’s main points will discuss the rationale behind the EU digital sovereignty (including dependency, innovation and effective compliance), recent European-centric technological and platform shifts, the steps the EU is taking to successfully be digitally sovereign and finally, examples of European alternatives
Rationale behind the move
The reasons for digital sovereignty can be summed up in three main areas: (I) less dependency on non-EU tech, (ii) leading and innovating technological solutions, and (iii) ensuring better enforcement and subsequent adherence to data protection laws/fundamental rights.
(i) Less dependency: Global geopolitical tensions between US-China/Russia push Europe towards developing its own digital capabilities and secure its supply chains. Insecure supply chain makes Europe vulnerable to failing energy grids.
More recently, US giant Microsoft threatened the International legal order by revoking US-sanctioned International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan’s Microsoft software access, preventing the Chief Prosecutor from working on his duties at the ICC. In light of these scenarios, Europeans are turning to developing more European-based solutions to reduce upstream dependencies.
(ii) Leaders & innovators: A common argument is that Americans innovate, the Chinese copy, and the Europeans regulate. If the EU aims to be a digital geopolitical player, it must position itself to be a regulator which promotes innovation. It can achieve this by upskilling its workforce of non-digital trades into digital ones to transform its workforce, have more EU digital infrastructure (data centres, cloud storage and management software), further increase innovation spending and create laws that truly allow for the uptake of EU technological development instead of relying on alternative, cheaper non-EU options.
(iii) Effective compliance: Knowing that fines are more difficult to enforce towards non-EU companies than the EU companies (ex., Clearview AI), EU-based technological organisations would allow for corrective measures, warnings, and fines to be enforced more effectively. Thus, enabling more adherence towards the EU’s digital agenda and respect for fundamental rights.
Can the EU achieve Digital Sovereignty?
The main speed bumps towards the EU digital sovereignty are: i) a lack of digital infrastructure (cloud storage & data centres), ii) (critical) raw material dependency and iii) Legislative initiatives to facilitate the path towards digital sovereignty (innovation procurement and fragmented compliance regime).
i) lack of digital infrastructure: In order for the EU to become digitally sovereign it must have its own sovereign digital infrastructure.
In practice, the EU relies heavily on American data centre providers (i.e. Equinix, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services) hosted in the EU. In this case, even though the data is European and hosted in the EU, the company that hosts it is non-European. This poses reliance and legislative challenges, such as ensuring adequate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data when it is in transit to the US. Given the EU-US DPF, there is a legal basis for transferring EU personal data to the US.
However, if the DPF were to be struck down (perhaps due to the US’ Cloud Act), as it has been in the past (twice with Schrems I and Schrems II) and potentially Schrems III, there would no longer be a legal basis for the transfer of the EU personal data to a US data centre.
Previously, the EU’s 2022 Directive on critical entities resilience allowed for the EU countries to identify critical infrastructure and subsequently ensure they take the technical, security and organisational measures to assure their resilience. Part of this Directive covers digital infrastructure, including providers of cloud computing services and providers of data centres. From this, the EU has recently developed guidelines for member states to identify critical entities. However, these guidelines do not anticipate how to achieve resilience and leave this responsibility with member states.
ii) Raw material dependency: The EU cannot be digitally sovereign until it reduces some of its dependencies on other countries’ raw materials to build the hardware necessary to be technologically sovereign. In 2025, the EU’s goals were to create a new roadmap towards critical raw material (CRM) sovereignty to rely on its own energy sources and build infrastructure.
Thus, the RESourceEU Action Plan was born in December 2025. This plan contains 6 pillars: securing supply through knowledge, accelerating and promoting projects, using the circular economy and fostering innovation (recycling products which contain CRMs), increasing European demand for European projects (stockpiling CRMs), protecting the single market and partnering with third countries for long-lasting diversification. Practically speaking, part of this plan is to match Europe and or global raw material supply with European demand for European projects.
iii) Legislative initiatives to facilitate the path towards digital sovereignty:
Tackling difficult innovation procurement: the argument is to facilitate its uptake of innovation procurement across the EU. In 2026, the EU is set to reform its public procurement framework for innovation. The Innovation Procurement Update (IPU) team has representatives from over 33 countries (predominantly through law firms, Bird & Bird being the most represented), which recommends that innovation procurement reach 20% of all public procurement.
Another recommendation would help more costly innovative solutions to be awarded procurement projects, which in the past were awarded to cheaper procurement bids. In practice, the lowest price of a public procurement bid is preferred, and if it meets the remaining procurement conditions, it wins the bid – but de-prioritising this non-pricing criterion would enable companies with more costly innovative solutions to win public procurement bids.
Alleviating compliance challenges: lowering other compliance burdens whilst maintaining the digital aquis: recently announced at the World Economic Forum by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, EU.inc would help cross-border business operations scaling up by alleviating company, corporate, insolvency, labour and taxation law compliance burdens. By harmonising these into a single framework, businesses can more easily grow and deploy cross-border solutions that would otherwise face hurdles.
Power through data: another legislative measure to help facilitate the path towards the EU digital sovereignty is unlocking the potential behind European data. In order to research innovative solutions, data is required. This can be achieved through personal or non-personal data. The EU’s GDPR regulates personal data and is currently undergoing amendments. If the proposed changes to the GDPR are approved, i.e. a broadening of its scope, data that used to be considered personal (and thus required GDPR compliance) could be deemed non-personal and used more freely for research purposes. The Data Act regulate the reuse and re-sharing of non-personal data. It aims to simplify and bolster the fair reuse of non-personal data. Overall, both personal and non-personal data can give important insight that research can benefit from in developing European innovative sovereign solutions.
European alternatives
European companies have already built a network of European platforms, services and apps with European values at heart:
Category
Currently Used
EU Alternative
Comments
Social media
TikTok, X, Instagram
Monnet (Luxembourg)
‘W’ (Sweden)
Monnet is a social media app prioritises connections and non-addictive scrolling. Recently announced ‘W’ replaces ‘X’ and is gaining major traction with non-advertising models at its heart.
Email
Microsoft’s Outlook and Google’s gmail
Tuta (mail/calendar), Proton (Germany), Mailbox (Germany), Mailfence (Belgium)
Replace email and calendar apps with a privacy focused business model.
Search engine
Google Search and DuckDuckGo
Qwant (France) and Ecosia (German)
Qwant has focused on privacy since its launch in 2013. Ecosia is an ecofriendly focused business model which helps plant trees when users search
Video conferencing
Microsoft Teams and Slack a
Visio (France), Wire (Switzerland, Mattermost (US but self hosted), Stackfield (Germany), Nextcloud Talk (Germany) and Threema (Switzerland)
These alternatives are end-to-end encrypted. Visio is used by the French Government
Writing tools
Microsoft’s Word & Excel and Google Sheets, Notion
Most of these options provide cloud storage and NexCloud is a recurring alternative across categories.
Finance
Visa and Mastercard
Wero (EU)
Not only will it provide an EU wide digital wallet option, but it will replace existing national options – providing for fast adoption.
LLM
OpenAI, Gemini, DeepSeek’s LLM
Mistral AI (France) and DeepL (Germany)
DeepL is already wildly used and Mistral is more transparent with its partially open-source model and ease of reuse for developers
Hardware
Semi conductors: ASML (Dutch) Data Center: GAIA-X (Belgium)
ASML is a chip powerhouse for the EU and GAIA-X set an example of EU based data centres with it open-source federated data infrastructure.
A dedicated website called ‘European Alternatives’ provides exactly what it says, European Alternatives. A list with over 50 categories and 100 alternatives
Conclusion
In recent years, the Union’s policy goals have shifted towards overt digital sovereignty solutions through diversification of materials and increased innovation spending, combined with a restructuring of the legislative framework to create the necessary path towards European digital infrastructure.
Whilst this analysis does not include all speed bumps, nor avenues towards the road of the EU digital sovereignty, it sheds light on the EU’s most recent major policy developments. Key questions remain regarding data reuse, its impact on data protection fundamental rights and whether this reshaping of the framework will yield the intended results.
Therefore, how will the EU tread whilst it becomes a more coherent sovereign geopolitical player?
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Concerns over privacy safeguards have resurfaced as the European Data Protection Supervisor urges legislators to limit indiscriminate chat-scanning in the upcoming extension of temporary EU rules.
The supervisor warns that the current framework risks enabling broad surveillance instead of focusing on targeted action against criminal content.
The EU institutions are considering a short-term renewal of the interim regime governing the detection of online material linked to child protection.
Privacy officials argue that such measures need clearer boundaries and stronger oversight to ensure that automated scanning tools do not intrude on the communications of ordinary users.
EDPS is also pressing lawmakers to introduce explicit safeguards before any renewal is approved. These include tighter definitions of scanning methods, independent verification, and mechanisms that prevent the processing of unrelated personal data.
According to the supervisor, temporary legislation must not create long-term precedents that weaken confidentiality across messaging services.
The debate comes as the EU continues discussions on a wider regulatory package covering child-protection technologies, encryption and platform responsibilities.
Privacy authorities maintain that targeted tools can be more practical than blanket scanning, which they consider a disproportionate response.
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Lawmakers in the European Parliament remain divided over whether a direct ban on AI-driven ‘pornification’ should be added to the emerging digital omnibus.
Left-wing members push for an explicit prohibition, arguing that synthetic sexual imagery generated without consent has created a rapidly escalating form of online abuse. They say a strong legal measure is required instead of fragmented national responses.
Centre and liberal groups take a different position by promoting lighter requirements for industrial AI and seeking clarity on how any restrictions would interact with the AI Act.
They warn that an unrefined ban could spill over into general-purpose models and complicate enforcement across the European market. Their priority is a more predictable regulatory environment for companies developing high-volume AI systems.
Key figures across the political spectrum, including lawmakers such as Assita Kanko, Axel Voss and Brando Benifei, continue to debate how far the omnibus should go.
Some argue that safeguarding individuals from non-consensual sexual deepfakes must outweigh concerns about administrative burdens, while others insist that proportionality and technical feasibility need stronger assessment.
The lack of consensus leaves the proposal in a delicate phase as negotiations intensify. Lawmakers now face growing public scrutiny over how Europe will respond to the misuse of generative AI.
A clear stance from the Parliament is still pending, rather than an assured path toward agreement.
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Authorities in Russia have tightened their grip on Telegram after the state regulator Roskomnadzor introduced new measures accusing the platform of failing to curb fraud and safeguard personal data.
Users across the country have increasingly reported slow downloads and disrupted media content since January, with complaints rising sharply early in the week. Although officials initially rejected claims of throttling, industry sources insist that download speeds have been deliberately reduced.
Telegram’s founder, Pavel Durov, argues that Roskomnadzor is trying to steer people toward Max rather than allowing open competition. Max is a government-backed messenger widely viewed by critics as a tool for surveillance and political control.
While text messages continue to load normally for most, media content such as videos, images and voice notes has become unreliable, particularly on mobile devices. Some users report that only the desktop version performs without difficulty.
The slowdown is already affecting daily routines, as many Russians rely on Telegram for work communication and document sharing, much as workplaces elsewhere rely on Slack rather than email.
Officials also use Telegram to issue emergency alerts, and regional leaders warn that delays could undermine public safety during periods of heightened military activity.
Pressure on foreign platforms has grown steadily. Restrictions on voice and video calls were introduced last summer, accompanied by claims that criminals and hostile actors were using Telegram and WhatsApp.
Meanwhile, Max continues to gain users, reaching 70 million monthly accounts by December. Despite its rise, it remains behind Telegram and WhatsApp, which still dominate Russia’s messaging landscape.
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A global health organisation is urging the EU to make fuller use of its digital rules to curb health disinformation as concerns grow over the impact of deepfakes on public confidence.
Warnings point to a rising risk that manipulated content could reduce vaccine uptake instead of supporting informed public debate.
Experts argue that the Digital Services Act already provides the framework needed to limit harmful misinformation, yet enforcement remains uneven. Stronger oversight could improve platforms’ ability to detect manipulated content and remove inaccurate claims that jeopardise public health.
Campaigners emphasise that deepfake technology is now accessible enough to spread false narratives rapidly. The trend threatens vaccination campaigns at a time when several member states are attempting to address declining trust in health authorities.
The EU officials continue to examine how digital regulation can reinforce public health strategies. The call for stricter enforcement highlights the pressure on Brussels to ensure that digital platforms act responsibly rather than allowing misleading material to circulate unchecked.
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Discord is preparing a global transition to teen-appropriate settings that will apply to all users unless they confirm they are adults.
The phased rollout begins in early March and forms part of the company’s wider effort to offer protection tailored to younger audiences rather than relying on voluntary safety choices. Controls will cover communication settings, sensitive content and access to age-restricted communities.
The update is based on an expanded age assurance system designed to protect privacy while accurately identifying users’ age groups. People can use facial age estimation on their own device or select identity verification handled by approved partners.
Discord will also rely on an age-inference model that runs quietly in the background. Verification results remain private, and documents are deleted quickly, with users able to appeal group assignments through account settings.
Stricter defaults will apply across the platform. Sensitive media will stay blurred unless a user is confirmed as an adult, and access to age-gated servers or commands will require verification.
Message requests from unfamiliar contacts will be separated, friend-request alerts will be more prominent and only adults will be allowed to speak on community stages instead of sharing the feature with teens.
Discord is complementing the update by creating a Teen Council to offer advice on future safety tools and policies. The council will include up to a dozen young users and aims to embed real teen insight in product development.
The global rollout builds on earlier launches in the UK and Australia, adding to an existing safety ecosystem that includes Teen Safety Assist, Family Centre, and several moderation tools intended to support positive and secure online interactions.
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