The EU’s 2030 Digital Compass plans, according to widespread leaks, include 10,000 low-latency edge nodes by 2030, plus gigabit-scale 5G coverage of all urban areas by the same year.
It also wants the EU to make its first quantum computer by 2025 and to have a 20% share of high-end semiconductor chips by 2030.
The plan will be published today by Margrethe Vestager (pictured), VP of the European Commission, and Thierry Breton, who is the european commissioner for internal market — effectively the industry minister of the 27-nation EU.
The EU is particularly worried about data privacy. The leaked report says: “Today, data produced in Europe is generally stored and processed outside Europe, and its value is also extracted outside Europe.” Almost all data on EU citizens is managed by US companies, it notes.
“While businesses generating and exploiting data should retain free choice in this regard, this can bring risks in terms of cybersecurity, supply vulnerabilities, switching possibilities as well as unlawful access to data by third countries.”
The European Commission report wants data moved to the edge, held in, according to one report, 10,000 edge nodes, and “distributed in a way that will guarantee access to data services with low latency (few milliseconds) wherever businesses are located”.
It is also worried about chip manufacture, noting: “There are important gaps, notably in state-of-the-art fabrication technologies and in chip design, exposing Europe to a number of vulnerabilities.”
According to Reuters, “it is our proposed level of ambition that by 2030 the production of cutting-edge and sustainable semiconductors in Europe including processors is at least 20% of world production in value”.
