Pax Silica: How Europe Surrendered Digital Sovereignty To America’s New Tech Empire

By Uriel Araujo

Only months after debating digital sovereignty, the European Union signed onto Washington’s Pax Silica initiative. The move reflects a profound shift in transatlantic relations, with far-reaching implications for AI, semiconductors, strategic autonomy and the future balance of global technological power.

The European Union has formally joined the US-led Pax Silica initiative. The European Commission signed, on Tuesday, the declaration on behalf of the 27 member states during an event in Washington. This followed months of internal negotiations and American pressure. Individual EU countries, including the Netherlands, and reportedly Germany and Greece, also signed bilaterally, adding to earlier participants like Finland and Sweden.

The initiative aims to reduce or eliminate Chinese participation in advanced AI  semiconductor supply chains. The EU needs Nvidia (American multinational tech company) chips for its AI infrastructure, while Washington relies on European strengths such as Dutch ASML lithography machines and Swedish/Finnish telecom expertise. In any case, Central and Eastern European states sought assurances against potential US export restrictions. The move, it turns out, reflects a degree of transatlantic alignment under the current Trump administration, even as some European voices express caution, and even while US-European tensions have been on the rise.

The name Pax Silica itself references Silicon Valley, in the place of Rome, although a reference to “silicon” material is the official explanation, and this reveals how US-centric the project is. Incidentally, it is not the best Latin construction for a Roman-sounding pompous name, unless one concedes it is New Latin (a classicist might have preferred something closer to Pax Silica). Anyhow, the branding evokes an imperial “Pax” imposed by Washington rather than a neutral partnership.

Pax Silica goes far beyond technical cooperation. American officials (particularly Under Secretary Jacob Helberg and Secretary of State Marco Rubio) have presented it as a strategic economic-security framework, linking AI, critical minerals, semiconductors, trusted supply chains, technology governance, and measures to protect strategic technologies from geopolitical rivals.

It positions advanced technology as new infrastructure for Western alliances, akin to security cooperation in past decades. Helberg has described it as organizing a coalition around computing, silicon, minerals, and energy, the very resources that should shape the 21st century.

The United States committed an initial $250 million through the Pax Silica Fund and intends to leverage that seed funding to mobilize much larger pools of private and sovereign capital across critical minerals, infrastructure, manufacturing, semiconductors, and AI-related supply chains.

As commentator Arnaud Bertrand argues, Pax Silica sells itself as a wall against China but functions more as a “cage” keeping partners dependent on American tech stacks and unable to build independent alternatives. Under Secretary Helberg himself has bluntly described the initiative as an “alternative” to the concept of “digital sovereignty.” According to him, pursuing national or regional tech stacks would lead to “synchronised mediocrity”, so it is better instead to promote “innovation sovereignty” – under US leadership, naturally.

Other experts have warned the initiative will further erode Europe’s industrial autonomy. Bertrand aptly calls it the “Pax Silica Con”: like Roman clientela arrangements, it offers access to a network in exchange for alignment, while discouraging truly independent development. One can only assume Big Tech pressures and transatlantic security ties must have weighed heavily on European decision-making.

Until quite recently, European elites were discussing digital sovereignty, as I noted in March. Initiatives like the Digital Services Act, efforts toward a “EuroStack,” and debates on reducing reliance on American cloud providers and chips reflected genuine concern over strategic vulnerabilities. As a matter of fact, dependence on US firms for over two-thirds of cloud services and key AI hardware has long raised fears that such leverage could be weaponized.

Yet this latest step seems to go in the opposite direction, thereby deepening integration into a US-dominated ecosystem. No wonder critics, including in France, have described it as an attempt to “colonize Europe.” I’ve noted before that the American relationship with its European “allies” is often colonial in nature, sometimes bordering on enmity even.

This latest development in fact fits a longer pattern: Washington for one thing has repeatedly hindered European industrial and defence autonomy. As I argued, back in 2022, the US subsidy policies, such as the Inflation Reduction Act, amounted to a subsidy war aimed at rival European industry. In 2023, I noted that de-industrialized Europe had become more dependent than ever on the US for security, with its military in an appalling state and lacking common markets or supply chains. Although Europe has begun to reverse some of those trends, the underlying structural problems remain far from solved. Whenever the EU tries to articulate independent industrial or defence policies, American interests push back. The digital domain is no exception, it seems.

Be as it may, China continues advancing rapidly in AI. An international survey this year found that 42% of global respondents see China as the leader in AI development, compared to 37% for the US. According to Stanford’s AI Index, the performance gap between leading models has narrowed to just 2.7%. As researcher Ahmed Abel remarks, Chinese firms excel in patents, publications, open-source adoption, and real-world integration. Thus, Pax Silica appears as much an effort to slow competitors as to lock in allies.

To sum it up, European talk of “strategic autonomy”, be it in technology, defence, or industry, increasingly rings hollow against actions that actually reinforce dependence. Europe’s choice may bring short-term access to advanced chips, but at the cost of long-term industrial vitality and genuine multipolar options. The latest Pax Silica initiative, as it is, reveals a hard truth: in the current transatlantic dynamic, “partnership” often means subordination.

Uriel Araujo, Anthropology PhD, is a social scientist specializing in ethnic and religious conflicts, with extensive research on geopolitical dynamics and cultural interactions.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.

Categories: Analysis, International Affairs, Technology

Tags: AI, America, Big Tech, China, EU, Europe, European Commission, European Union, Technology, USA