It’s neither easy nor quick, but there’s an opportunity for European tech firms

US influence on global tech has grown to outsize proportions. A new research report explores the possibility of breaking free from the American hegemony.

The lack of European tech providers is a drum we’ve been banging for ages, but an increasingly unreliable USA and an American tech industry that seems happy to bow to governmental whims has thrown the fact into stark relief.

On top of that geopolitical tension, there is a growing question of digital sovereignty – the need to keep data local, a requirement for many government agencies.

These pressures are why a small but growing number of IT leaders are at least exploring the possibility of a less US-centric tech stack – but that’s a big ask.

As consulting CTO Mark Ridley puts it in a new research report, “Most [organisations] search with Google, sell with Salesforce, and work on Macs, iPhones, Dell laptops, and Android devices. We use Notion and Slack to collaborate. Our cybersecurity is safeguarded by firms like Okta, Palo Alto Networks, and CrowdStrike. Many of the best workplace technologies in the world are built by teams with US HQs.”

European organisations, in a nutshell, rely on American companies for everything from their cloud infrastructure to their hardware. That’s a potentially dangerous situation to be in, which is why Mark’s report looks at whether a non-US SME (enterprise-scale firms are a different beast) tech stack is even possible – let alone viable – and how it compares in usability, cost and integration with existing workflows.

Where to start?

A tech stack is made up of two elements: software and hardware. Cloud is arguably a third element, but the research report focuses on workplace technology rather than infrastructure.

Of the two tech stack pillars, one turns out to be much easier to address than the other.

A viable non-US software stack, coming between Google- and Microsoft-based stacks in per-user, per-month price, is achievable using alternatives like ProtonMail (Switzerland) for email, Atlassian (Australia) for collaboration and Xero (New Zealand) for accounting.

A fully integrated stack using Zoho (India) is also possible, but with trade-offs in flexibility.

Hardware, on the other hand, is more difficult; most remains deeply linked to US-based supply chains, with key manufacturers/designers like AMD, Intel, Nvidia and Qualcomm making it difficult to escape US influence. Alternatives like MediaTek or Samsung are available, but with limitations in terms of performance, availability and compatibility.

“Achieving full independence at the hardware level would require a fundamental restructuring of the global semiconductor industry – a shift that remains improbable in the near future,” Mark notes.

And what about cloud? Freeing yourself of hyperscaler influence is a huge ask, but companies that really wish to could look at European providers like OVH Cloud. They should, though, be aware there would likely be considerable effort required to remove underlying hyperscaler-specific technologies like AWS’ S3 or Microsoft Fabric.

Is it possible?

Bluntly: Yes, but there are trade-offs, especially in user experience, supply chain dependence and integration complexity. Simply, US providers continue to dominate not just because their tools are very good, but because users are so familiar with them.

One piece of software highlights that problem: Excel. Without Google Sheets in the mix, and discounting Libre Office (the toolset is open source but lacks an online mode, which counted against it in this particular research), Only Office is the only alternative – “but the user experience may lack and finance professionals will fight to the end to keep their Excel licence.”

On the topic of open source, Amanda Brock – CEO of industry body OpenUK – told us about the report:

“I am deeply concerned by the geopolitical shifts that are driving work like Mark’s, and discussions about siloing tech. The EU has been shouting about sovereignty in the software stack for some time, and would also have to use open source to achieve this. Of course, this approach where countries want to double down on sovereignty is going to upset the key players like the US and drive countries like Russia and China, viewed as hostile actors, to bifurcate and fork. It couldn’t ever do otherwise.”

She added that open source projects’ decisions to exclude certain contributors based on nationality is an unnecessary blocker to contribution and global collaboration.

“JD Vance was clear at the AI Action Summit that in his view nothing good ever came of collaboration [with hostile nations] – but the launch of DeepSeek’s R1, and its recent open source week, shows us (if there was ever a doubt) that the best innovation will only come from global collaboration. We must find ways to keep the borders open to digital and AI collaboration.”

How can UK firms profit?

US tech is widely used because it is familiar and works well; but any company that does want to diversify their tech stack is in a difficult position. “Europe and the UK have few compelling alternatives for critical components of their workplace technology infrastructure,” Mark writes.

Although it may not be an answer in the short term, there is an opportunity here. If European and UK tech firms held on to their IP, rather than selling to US buyers or listing on the Nasdaq (see: Arm, Darktrace, Deepmind), tech could thrive away from the US West Coast – and people who want to de-Yank their stack would have options without compromise.