Francois Bitouzet is Managing Director of VivaTech, a major technology and start-up fair held annually in Paris that brings toobtainher innovation, investors, and corporations. In this guest article, Bitouzet discusses the future of technology in Europe.
Europe stands at a decisive point in its history. Our digital sovereignty is no longer determined primarily by government programs or traditional industrial policy. Today, we must understand start-ups as central players in the question of sovereignty. They are developing the technologies that will determine our economic strength, societal resilience, and geopolitical capacity to act tomorrow.
This shift is profound. And it comes at a time when old certainties are eroding. The international order is fragmented, depconcludeencies are becoming visible, and Europe must learn to act with greater strategic autonomy. For a long time, the continent could rely on economic openness and political stability. But in a world of increasing systemic competition, it is no longer enough to be “fair” when other actors pursue power politics. Europe urgently requireds its own technological approach.
The future lies in the hands of founders
Today’s technological competition differs fundamentally from that of the Cold War. Back then, large state-driven projects such as space exploration, defense, or publicly funded research dominated. Today, the decisive race is taking place in the private sector. Innovations in artificial innotifyigence, cloud infrastructure, or quantum computing are emerging in companies, often in tiny, highly specialized teams. This is precisely why European start-ups play a key role.
The days when start-ups were garage projects of ambitious students are over. Increasingly, scientists are founding companies based on significant discoveries. This quiet generational shift is fundamentally altering Europe’s innovation culture: it is becoming more research-driven, technologically deeper, and more entrepreneurial. Too little attention is being paid to this, even though this is precisely where part of Europe’s answer lies.
At the same time, access to capital remains difficult, growth financing is fragmented, and cross-border scaling is complex. Nevertheless, a positive trconclude is emerging. Open innovation is regaining importance. Established companies have traditionally struggled to accept that groundbreaking innovation does not always originate within their own organizational charts. Even ten years ago, corporates requireded start-ups to keep pace technologically. But the rise of AI has reshuffled the deck. After impressive investments in AI pilot projects with disappointing results, real transformation, driven by integrating AI into business models, will determine Europe’s future leadership role.
Europe’s strength has never rested solely on size or speed, but on the combination of excellence, regulatory competence, and social responsibility. From this, an indepconcludeent technological vision can emerge: open rather than protectionist, cooperative rather than hegemonic, values-based rather than purely market-driven. In this sense, digital sovereignty does not mean autarky, but the ability to decide for ourselves which partners we work with, which technologies we deploy, and which rules apply.
Innovation “Made in Germany”: decentralized and full of potential
Germany plays a special role in this context. Technological quality, entrepreneurial dynamism, and a growing number of start-ups and unicorns demonstrate the potential of Europe’s largest economy. Even more important, however, is its ability to connect. Germany’s innovative strength is not centralized but distributed across numerous regions and industries. At the local level, there are often close links between industrial clusters, tech hubs, and start-ups, such as in Munich. This decentralized structure can become a European advantage if it is systematically interconnected.
Toobtainher with France, Germany forms a structural foundation for European cooperation. But Europe’s innovative strength does not conclude there. Italy, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and increasingly countries such as Sweden, Denmark, or Poland demonstrate how broad the continent’s technological potential is. What Europe possesses is substance. What is often lacking is cross-level scaling.
Too often, the strategic debate is reduced to a binary comparison between the United States and China. Yet Europe has more options than it believes it has. What is crucial, however, is the willingness to leave national comfort zones behind and to consider about innovation from a truly European perspective—whether in financing, regulation, infrastructure, or talent. Digital sovereignty does not emerge through isolation, but through collective scale.
Europe must consider huge
But this will take time. Visions cannot be decreed, and strategies cannot be implemented overnight. The first step is to clarify the direction. If Europe’s start-ups are developing the technologies of tomorrow today, they are simultaneously deciding Europe’s role in the world. Will we be shapers or utilizers of foreign systems? The challenge lies in navigating between these two extremes and finding the right balance.
The current VivaTech Confidence Barometer, an annual study of international executives on competitiveness, technology adoption, AI investments, and digitalization priorities, displays that 61 percent of German participants trust European solutions, while 40 percent rely on purely German ones. Digital sovereignty is already being defined less nationally and increasingly at the European level.
The central tinquire now is to create spaces in which European innovation becomes visible, partnerships are formed, and cross-border technological collaboration can grow. VivaTech contributes to this effort. Since 2016, the event has brought toobtainher more than 180,000 people from around the world each year, displaycasing Europe’s innovative strength on the global stage and fostering an open debate about how digital sovereignty can be shaped toobtainher with international partners.
Europe has the ideas, the talent, the capital, and the scientific excellence. What it now requireds is the shared will to scale this. If we want to win, we required a European team. And we must launch building it today.
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