The EU’s AI Continent Action Plan and the Technological Sovereignty Package are reshaping European tech policy. But where do National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) fit into this emerging landscape?
From AI policy to technological sovereignty
Europe’s approach to Artificial Intelligence is shifting gears. Early debates focused heavily on regulation, but now the conversation is about capacity: can Europe develop, deploy, and scale its own AI technologies?
The AI Continent Action Plan (released in 2025) aims to answer that through targeted investments in compute infrastructure, AI Factories, data, skills, and broader adoption. We reported on the Action Plan in CONNECT last year. At the same time, the Action Plan is part of a larger push for technological sovereignty designed to cut critical dependencies across semiconductors, cloud computing, open source, and digital infrastructure. These ambitions are outlined in the recently released Technology Sovereignty Package (June 2026), which included proposals for a Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA), a Chips Act 2.0, a Strategic Roadmap for Digitalisation and AI in Energy, and an EU Open Source Strategy.
Driven by geopolitical tensions and a heavy reliance on non-European tech, this pivot to sovereignty has pushed digital infrastructure to the centre of EU policy-making. The 2025 AI Action Plan is therefore more than a standalone strategy – it is a building block for Europe’s digital independence.
Where does this leave Europe’s NRENs? They feature only marginally in these high-level discussions, and the emerging AI ecosystem is certainly not being built around them. Even so, rapid changes in compute, cloud, and data are already altering the environment in which NRENs operate.
The real question for GÉANT and the NREN community isn’t just how current services can support Europe’s AI ambitions. It is whether this new reality forces NRENs to rethink their strategic role altogether.
Where do NRENs come in?
Europe’s emerging AI ecosystem cuts right across traditional organisational and national boundaries, blending cloud, compute, data, and cybersecurity. For NRENs, this creates a new strategic context.
Europe’s NRENs vary widely in their missions and national mandates. Some will stay strictly focused on delivering world-class connectivity, while others are already stepping closer to national AI initiatives, compute access, or cross-border collaborations. There is no one-size-fits-all model for NRENs in this changing environment and towards developing demands from their national membership.
Instead of trying to map existing services directly onto the AI Action Plan, the more pressing question is where NRENs genuinely add value. Can they act as trusted intermediaries between research institutions, compute hubs, and data repositories? Could sovereignty demands give them a stronger mandate to reduce vendor dependencies? Or are these functions better left to others?
The Action Plan doesn’t hand out answers, but it gives NRENs the opportunity to ask these questions.
Openness as a strategic asset
Achieving technological sovereignty doesn’t mean building every single piece of tech within Europe. Rather, it means retaining the ability to develop, control, and scale critical technologies, infrastructure, and services while keeping strategic dependencies at bay – and maintaining the freedom to choose how tools are used.
This is where open technologies become critical. Open-source solutions do not guarantee sovereignty on their own; organisations still need skills, funding, and robust infrastructure. However, they drastically expand strategic choices by preventing vendor lock-in and allowing researchers to inspect, adapt, and run tech in environments they actually control.
Take Mistral AI as an example: by championing open-weight models while competing at the cutting edge of generative AI, they show that commercial innovation and open approaches can go hand in hand within a European ecosystem.
For NRENs, concepts like openness, interoperability, and sustainability are second nature. The challenge now is recognising how much weight they carry in an AI landscape increasingly defined by dependency concerns.
A strategic choice for NRENs
The AI Continent Action Plan and the Technology Sovereignty Package will not rewrite the core mission of NRENs. However, they will redefine the operational context for European research, innovation, and education.
As Europe views compute, cloud, and data through the lens of sovereignty, NRENs face clear choices. Some will remain elite connectivity providers; others will forge new paths inside national and European AI ecosystems. There is no single playbook, nor should there be.
The goal isn’t to rebrand existing services as “AI contributions” just to tick a box. The goal is to figure out where NRENs can make a real difference in a shifting technological world, and whether that requires a fresh look at their infrastructure, their national environment, and existing partnerships.
Europe’s technological sovereignty will ultimately depend on the strength of its ecosystems and the conscious choices made by the organisations inside them. For NRENs, now is the time to make those choices deliberately.
These questions are also at the heart of ongoing discussions within GÉANT’s Special Interest Group on Public Affairs & Policy (SIG-PA). The SIG provides a forum for NRENs to exchange perspectives on digital sovereignty, geopolitical developments, and their implications for research and education networking.
This article was written in WP3T3 of the GN5-2 project.
