Can European tech firms replace Amazon, Google, and Microsoft?

A global Microsoft outage disrupted Outlook and Teams users across Europe this week, reigniting concerns about the continent's heavy reliance on a few US tech giants. The incident has prompted renewed calls for European public bodies to adopt more local cloud services. US firms Amazon, Microsoft, and Google control about 70% of the European cloud market, while European providers hold roughly 15%, down from 29% in 2017. The largest European players, Germany's SAP and Deutsche Telekom, each hold only about 2% of the market. European alternatives exist, including AI firm Mistral AI and cloud provider STACKIT, but analysts say they will struggle to reverse market share losses. A European Parliament committee will discuss the proposed Cloud and AI Development Act on December 1st.