NexusForum2025 Summit: AI, Cloud & Sustainability for Europe’s Digital Sovereignty

For two days, on 5-6 November 2025, NexusForum.EU organised in Brussels the third edition of Nexus Forum Summit. The event brought together policymakers, industry leaders, and researchers to chart Europe’s course toward digital sovereignty, innovation in cloud infrastructure, and trustworthy AI. 

Shaping Europe’s Digital Sovereignty

In the opening session led by Sachiko Muto, Senior Researcher RISE and Chair of OpenForum Europe, panelists explored what “digital sovereignty” means in political and philosophical terms. Speakers warned that Europe loses an estimated €260 billion annually due to dependence on non-European hyperscalers, a situation fueled by early public procurement policies that favored U.S. giants. The call to action was to enable European SMEs to thrive by designing procurement frameworks that empower domestic innovation rather than import dependency. This panel expressed a range of perspectives, some welcomed the opportunity to assess solutions across multiple dimensions, while others preferred a simpler pass/fail evaluation. Overall, participants valued the introduction of concrete language that translates political objectives into measurable criteria, enabling more meaningful engagement and feedback on the details.

Building the AI Continent

The panel “Building the AI Continent”, moderated by Dr. Monique Calisti, CEO Martel Innovate and President of Digital4Planet, explored Europe’s ambition to become a global leader in trustworthy, ethical, and secure AI. Panelists emphasized safeguarding democratic values while addressing practical challenges such as scaling capacity, ensuring affordability, and achieving interoperability. Hardware limitations, including data center inefficiencies and compute density, were noted as bottlenecks. Finally Dr. Calisti summarized the key takeaways from this panel discussion as the following:

• Open source as the foundation – Make open source the default for AI infrastructure to ensure digital sovereignty and avoid vendor lock-in. Align public procurement and private investment toward European-led open source initiatives.
• Interoperability is essential – Enforce open standards and interoperability across AI infrastructure to eliminate data silos and enable seamless innovation across Europe.
• Secure connectivity at the edge – Prioritize resilient, trustworthy connectivity (including 6G) to protect data and extend AI capabilities securely to the edge.
• Regulation must be backed by resources – Pair the AI Act with financial support to help SMEs comply and innovate without slowing adoption.
• Leverage European success stories – Build on initiatives like IPCEI-CIS and 8RA, proving that sovereign, scalable European cloud and AI infrastructures are already emerging.

Federated Cloud for Europe and Cloud Innovation for AI

In these panels the moderators and the panelists examined the future of a federated European cloud, identifying persistent technical, regulatory, and cultural barriers. The discussion raised a critical question: Can a connected, competitive European cloud ecosystem become a reality within five years?

The consensus of the panelists was that public policy will play a decisive role. However, participants noted a major shortcoming: SMEs still struggle to access public procurement, limiting their ability to participate in Europe’s digital transformation.

The focus then turned to the IPCEI-CIS (Important Projects of Common European Interest) initiative as a key enabler for cross-border collaboration in cloud and AI development. The panel emphasized that mutual benefit and collaboration requirements are driving greater participation and urged stakeholders to “see what IPCEI delivers” in practice.

The closing remark for Day1 was done by Dr. Andrew Adams, Meiji University, Japan. Dr. Adams underscored the conditions that allowed the hyperscalers to rise and dominate the global digital market. He noted that the United States had already established a digital single market as early as the 1990s, while Europe was still fragmented, lacking a unified digital framework. The absence of borders in the U.S. digital marketplace, combined with hidden subsidies and a lack of effective antitrust scrutiny, created an environment where hyperscalers could scale rapidly and consolidate power. He challenged the audience to reflect on Europe’s path forward, asking whether the continent can bounce back and truly compete with these global giants, and if so, how.

An Interesting closing keynote was delivered by Cristina Caffarra, Leader of the Eurostack Initiative. Her intervention highlighted three main themes: how the EuroStack initiative is mobilising European industry to take concrete steps toward achieving digital sovereignty; the need to adapt the EU’s industrial policy to reflect the evolving geopolitical landscape; and the introduction of EuroStack’s proposed framework for a “Buy European” regulation aimed at strengthening strategic digital procurement across the continent.

Day 2 of the NexusForum2025 Summit was focussed more on concrete projects and platforms. Experts from organisations and projects like AI-on-Demand, CISERO, 5GMEC4EU, FACT8RA, presented their platforms and key innovations in the European cloud-edge-iot ecosystem. A number of Horizon Europe Research and Innovation projects participated in the pitch session where they presented their key exploitable results.The experts presented disruptive tech, emphasized the importance of cross-border partnerships and building the future of cloud & edge ecosystems.

As the closing remark, it was announced that NexusForum.EU will be back next year in April 2026 in South Korea with an event “NexusForum EU–Korea Digital Convergence Week 2026”. More details on this will be announced soon, so stay tuned!