atNorth: How Strategic Investment Powers Digital Sovereignty

Rapid advancements in AI, as well as the pressing need for robust digital infrastructure, means that geographies like Europe are navigating a critical moment in the digital age.

Digital sovereignty — the capacity to independently control and secure digital assets and technologies — has emerged as a strategic priority.

Fredrik Jansson, Chief Strategy and Marketing & Communications Officer at Nordic data centre services company atNorth, says achieving digital sovereignty is “not just investment, but the right investment” that will enable Europe to build geopolitical resilience, economic independence and sustained competitiveness.

Why digital sovereignty is so important

With the landscape changing more rapidly than ever before, Europe has been exposed to the vulnerabilities of overreliance on non-European technology providers and infrastructure, Fredrik says.

For example, hyperscalers like AWS, Google and Microsoft dominate the cloud and AI ecosystem, presenting both technological dependency risks and limited strategic autonomy.

As Fredrik points out, rather than seeking a complete disengagement from these global players, Europe’s focus should be on creating a balanced digital infrastructure market where both robust European providers and global hyperscalers coexist, offering choice and resilience to customers.

“It remains a big ask to build a European hyperscaler or the next OpenAI,” he notes. 

“We must recognise that US hyperscalers like AWS, Google and Microsoft are an essential and indispensable part of the European digital ecosystem. While concerns about dependency and external pressures are legitimate, hyperscalers offer scale, technology and cybersecurity capabilities that are currently hard to match. 

“The goal must be to offer European customers a choice of infrastructure that includes both robust European providers and global hyperscalers, fostering a balanced market rather than pursuing complete disconnection.”

There is now clear recognition across the EU as well as on national levels when it comes to the urgency for significant and targeted investment. 

The European Data Centre Association’s (EUDCA) State of European Data Centres 2025 report emphasises how Europe’s ability to “stand on its own feet” depends on the scale, robustness and autonomy of its data centre infrastructure. 

However, the nature and direction of this investment, Fredrik shares, must be carefully calibrated.

“2025 has seen the sovereignty argument, which has been brewing for a number of years, suddenly explode onto the political scene,” he says,

“The benefit of this is that politicians of all parties, across both national and EU jurisdictions, recognise the need for significant investment. 

“However, this new spotlight also casts some harsh shadows: what sort of sovereignty do we want? What can we achieve? And, fundamentally, what do we need now and in the immediate future?”

Europe’s strengths in the data centre landscape

Although some political narratives frame Europe as a ‘digital desert’, Fredrik is quick to point out that the continent already boasts substantial strengths: a skilled workforce, extensive data centre capacity and arguably the most sustainable data centres worldwide. 

atNorth itself is a celebrated sustainable data centre player, with a steadfast commitment to sustainable data centre solutions.

It and those also operating in Nordic countries benefit from exceptionally low carbon intensity in electricity production, such as Iceland’s 100% renewable energy grid and the Nordic region’s average carbon intensity of just 62g CO2e/kWh compared to the US average of 548 grams. 

“As sustainability remains a vital concern this could provide added impetus to locate high intensity workloads in European data centres,” Fredrik says. 

“This is an area of leadership and advantage that we should emphasise.”

He, however, is cautious against investment strategies that simply chase volume or spread resources thinly across every member state for political expediency. Instead, he feels strongly that there should be a strategic concentration of investment where it can yield maximum impact, leveraging existing competencies and economies of scale. 

“The Nordic region, for example, stands out as an attractive location for data centre development, particularly for AI workloads,” he explains. “Its natural advantages, including abundant renewable energy resources and cooler climates, help lower cooling costs and contribute to sustainability. 

“It makes sense therefore to make the Nordics the home for energy-intensive AI training and inference workloads while other geographics can cater to other cloud and digitalisation demands.”

Strategic investment for a sustainable, resilient digital future

For Fredrik, Europe’s strategic investment in digital sovereignty must focus on targeted, sustainable and geographically appropriate digital infrastructure, aligned with evolving AI workloads and market dynamics. 

“While we can all agree that both significant investment and a renewed focus on building Europe’s own digital capability and autonomy are important, let’s make sure we get the right investment for the right things in the right places,” he emphasises. 

“Strategic investment should leverage Europe’s existing strengths and leverage the diversity and natural advantages it contains.”

Fredrik is unwavering in his belief that the future of Europe’s digital sovereignty hinges not on blanket investment or protectionism but on smart, strategic investment that leverages existing strengths, fosters innovation and places sustainability at the forefront. 

This approach, he says, will secure Europe’s autonomy and leadership in the digital decade ahead.

“This requires a balanced approach,” he concludes, “moving beyond simply increasing spending to making smart, targeted investments that build on existing strengths and future needs.”