« Either we share data amongst us, or it remains centralized by bigtech »
This white paper is the result of multiple discussions with private and public actors involved in the creation of a sovereign and competitive French and European digital ecosystem. It attempts to express as pragmatically and as usefully as possible tech actors’ expectations in this great data adventure, and trustworthy digital world in its entirety.
Stakeholders sometimes worry about our time gap, and are consequently vigilant about the technological, legal and commercial impacts that this may imply. Are we agreeing to see our strategic data, and even data of general interest (health today, education or energy tomorrow,…) entirely delegated to American or Chinese hyperscalers ? The current geopolitical turmoil invites us to avoid choosing the dangerous path of dependencies.
« For the startup nation not to become a mirage, France must also become an infrastructure nation »
The purpose of this position paper is to shed light on a complex issue. First, we are convinced that data sharing can offer a trustworthy digital for Europe’s technological and economic ambition. Secondly, we’ll see how data spaces can play a strategic role. Finally, our conviction is that only a strategist state can think and impulse a joint set of “Cloud, AI, and Data” programs. In France, what we need is a “data strategy” that echoes the European Data Strategy.
From our perspective, the states should harness the emergence of a data sharing InfraTech, driven by digital commons, to support the development of the data spaces. In doing so, to provide the technical and political foundation and impose trust as a doctrine of the digital third way.
The funding request that we are expressing here (see right side of the figure below) is ultimately to provide France, and Europe, with the means to have weight in the implementation of Gaia-X and thus seize the economic opportunities that it creates for our related industries and ecosystems.
How?
Funding an InfraTech that allows:
- To build a common cross-sector infrastructure to reduce the funding costs of the data space business
- To no longer depend on non sovereign solutions
- To enhance the digital commons
By funding joint leadership that enables:
- To support actors for the development of standards and labels
- To create a governance structure with the resources to coordinate the entire program between the sectors and the states
