Benjamin Revcolevschi, an engineer by training, did not imagine one of his future jobs would involve meeting digital ministers from EU member states almost every week.

But the chief executive of OVHcloud, a provider of cloud computing services, is riding a new wave of political interest as EU leaders increasingly wake up to the bloc’s dependence on US tech companies for the infrastructure that powers everything from healthcare systems to national defence.

“We have been on the sovereignty topic for the past 20 years,” Revcolevschi says. But since the election of US president Donald Trump, the tone of the political conversations has changed, he adds. “This is truly a different world.”

Europe is grappling with uncertainty over the US president’s long-term commitment to the transatlantic security alliance and his tendency in negotiations to conflate issues such as trade, defence and regulation.

Trump has fuelled anxiety among European governments and companies over privacy and data access and prompted concerns that the US could suspend or block the operations of US tech companies in Europe altogether.

Those operations are both deep and wide. Amazon, Microsoft and Google control more than two-thirds of the European cloud computing market. Google and Apple prevail in the mobile phone operating systems in the EU, while Google dominates the global search market.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT is the leading artificial intelligence chatbot in Europe, while the social media platforms that millions of Europeans use are mostly US-owned.

Just as in defence, the transatlantic tech dependency has become a geopolitical liability, amplifying long-standing calls for Europe to invest more and even favour its own compani