Europe's technology leaders organise against "Big Tech"

Berlin. What if a cyber attack paralyses the cloud? Or a war puts data centres and fibre optic cables at risk? The German software provider SAP and the French cloud service Bleu want to provide answers to such security questions: The companies have agreed a declaration of assistance with each other in the event of a crisis.

The paper was signed on Tuesday at the "Summit on European Digital Sovereignty" in Berlin, which was organised by Germany and France. Numerous companies from both countries used the stage to expand existing partnerships or launch new projects.

Many of the announcements come from companies participating in the EU AI Champions Initiative (EU AICI) launched by investor Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, which aims to strengthen the European AI sector.Since the initiative was launched in February at an AI summit in Paris According to the initiative, around 20 billion euros in investment was mobilised for European companies and projects in the field of artificial intelligence.

The projects now announced at the digital summit are intended to bundle around one billion in AI-related investments. "Industrial companies choose European AI start-ups not because they are European, but because they are among the best in the world," says Jeannette zu Fürstenberg. European companies want value creation to no longer flow to US and Chinese tech companies.

Handelsblatt has compiled a list of the most important plans for the economy.

SAP and Bleu: Crisis preparedness

SAP has founded the subsidiary Delos Cloud for business with the state. From 2026, it will offer Microsoft services to the public sector - operated in its own data centres, under its own control and free from access by US authorities. Bleu, a joint venture between the consultancy Capgemini and the mobile communications group Orange, is pursuing a similar approach in France.

SAP and Bleu are planning to help each other, for example in recognising and fending off cyber attacks. The aim is to "protect the national security interests of Germany and France in an insecure world", said Martin Merz, who heads up the sovereign cloud services business at DAX-listed SAP.

Photo: IMAGO/dreamstime

The exact nature of the collaboration will be clarified once the agreement has been signed. A joint situation centre for the exchange of information or backup copies of data at the respective partner are conceivable, SAP explained in response to a question from Handelsblatt.

Black Forest Labs and Mercedes: Marketing and design

The start-up Black Forest Labs (BFL) from Freiburg will soon be presenting a new visual AI base model. This will be able to generate website layouts at the touch of a button and place various images and image elements in new - real or animated - environments.

BFL CEO Robin Rombach told Handelsblatt: "Two characters can be placed in a new scene; clothing, surroundings or context can be changed. The marketing use cases are obvious." For example, Deutsche Telekom uses BFL's AI models to create image material for marketing. Image generation is also set to improve even further with the new model.

BFL is already known for its high-performance image models and has already won customers such as Adobe, Samsung and Meta. On the fringes of the digital summit, the start-up announced that Mercedes is also using its technology for marketing and design. Katrin Lehmann, Chief Innovation Officer at Mercedes, says: "Europe needs greater technological self-confidence - and Mercedes-Benz is determined to contribute to this."

Helsing and Mistral: AI for the military

The Munich-based defence start-up Helsing and the AI development company Mistral from France are expanding their existing partnership. The companies want to develop models for operational use and special deployment scenarios - such as for situational awareness, target recognition or the analysis of complex sensor data.

Helsing co-founder Gundbert Scherf is convinced that Europe must develop its own technologies "instead of creating new dependencies".

Photo: IMAGO/ABACAPRESS

According to the companies, the intensified cooperation is intended to lay a foundation on which Europe can develop and operate defence-relevant AI itself in the long term. Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch also spoke of an "important step on Europe's path to strategic autonomy".

Rheinmetall, MBDA and Spread AI: Faster procurement

The defence companies Rheinmetall and MBDA and the Berlin start-up Spread AI want to speed up development and approval processes for the military. Digital twins - virtual images of real production processes and machines - and end-to-end data chains between all instances involved are intended to bring military systems from design to production more quickly. The industry suffers from slow approval cycles and fragmented processes, according to company sources.

According to Spread CEO Robert Göbel, the aim is to enable "clear decisions, fewer delays and better coordination" between authorities, contractors and users.

Rheinmetall is already using the technologies to increase the operational readiness of systems, while MBDA is using them to automate parts of the quality inspection process. Together, the three partners want to create the basis for more uniform and independent European defence development.

Iceeye and Rheinmetall: Satellites for security

The Finnish satellite operator Iceeye maintains a fleet of civilian radar satellites. From next year, the company intends to produce one device per week. The aim is to provide robust, weather-independent reconnaissance that delivers near real-time data to European partners.

"Space is the foundation of modern security today," emphasised Iceeye co-founder Pekka Laurila. Europe needs its own systems to be able to recognise and assess crises and threats independently.

A new joint venture with Rheinmetall is aimed at governments and security agencies that require their own data. The German defence company sees this as an opportunity to make the continent less dependent on US services, which dominate the market.

Allianz and Parloa: AI agents for customer service

The insurance group wants to make greater use of artificial intelligence in customer service. Autonomous programmes, known as agents, are to handle standard enquiries, claims notifications and routine conversations and improve dialogue with customers.

The technology comes from the start-up Parloa. "Our aim is to anticipate our customers' needs and offer hyper-personalised support around the clock," said Allianz CEO Sirma Boshnakova.

The cooperation is remarkable because the Dax group Allianz has been a customer of Parloa competitor Cognigy for several years. The insurance company already has 90 AI bots from Cognigy in use, and the contract has reportedly just been extended. What the partnership between Allianz and Parloa means for Cognigy could not be clarified before this text was published.

Nextcloud: 250 million euros for collaboration

Nextcloud plans to invest 250 million euros over the next five years - for example, to expand its own platform for office and collaboration software with artificial intelligence functions. The company currently invests "tens of millions of euros" per year in research and development.

The investments are aimed at authorities, public institutions and companies that want to use AI without outsourcing data to US providers. Nextcloud is planning to significantly expand its development teams for this purpose. The company is disclosing the source code of its platform in accordance with the open source principle.

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