Microsoft tries to reassure Europe that it can resist the US government. Europe has doubts

“Our economic reliance on Europe has always run deep. We recognize that our business is critically dependent on sustaining the trust of customers, countries, and governments across Europe,” Smith wrote. “We respect European values, comply with European laws, and actively defend Europe’s cybersecurity. Our support for Europe has always been — and always will be — steadfast. In a time of geopolitical volatility, we are committed to providing digital stability.”

Increasing European capacity

“Today, we are announcing plans to increase our European datacenter capacity by 40% over the next two years,” the statement said. “We are expanding datacenter operations in 16 European countries. When combined with our recent construction, the plans we’re announcing today will more than double our European datacenter capacity between 2023 and 2027. It will result in cloud operations in more than 200 data centers across the continent.”

It added, “this expansion will play an important role in boosting Europe’s economic growth and competitiveness. We believe that broad AI diffusion will be one of the most important drivers of innovation and productivity growth over the next decade. Like electricity and other general-purpose technologies in the past, AI and cloud datacenters represent the next stage of industrialization.”