Tech sovereignty - you can have AI in any color you like, so long as it’s red, white and blue

Those were the words of Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith at a US Senate hearing last May. Since then the topic of tech sovereignty has gained more and more currency, not least in relation to AI, with the debate largely coming down to the US and/vs - delete as applicable according to your worldview - Europe and the growing divide between the two.

At the World Economic Forum gathering in Davos last month, for example, sovereignty was never far from the conversation.

The transatlantic gulf has not been helped by inflammatory commentary on both sides of the Pond. Sticking with the US for the moment, statements like this from Vice-President JD Vance are hardly likely to calm nerves:

The Europeans, they’re so friendly in private and they’re willing to make a lot of accommodations and then publicly they attack us and they say, ‘We’re not going to work ...