Europe urged to build sovereign AI to revive growth

McKinsey argues that Europe must rapidly build sovereign AI capabilities and infrastructure to reignite productivity growth and reduce strategic dependency on non-European technology providers.

• AI sovereignty scenario: Authors estimate a high-adoption, high-sovereignty path could add €480 billion/year to EU GDP by 2030, including €63 billion from European AI makers and €416 billion from productivity gains for takers, enabled by sovereign cloud, European-controlled data centers, and targeted focus on applications, models, and tools in key sectors (healthcare, energy, industrials, defense).
• Policy & infrastructure measures: Article calls for an EU-level sovereign AI fund investing €15–20 billion annually to 2030 in compute infrastructure, data centers, energy-efficient chips, and foundation models, plus a single AI market, sovereign-friendly public procurement quotas, alignment of AI data center power demand with renewable energy and grid planning, and large-scale talent, migration, and reskilling initiatives across Europe.