European tech CEOs urge 'Europe-first' mentality to counter U.S. dominance after Trump victory

LISBON, Portugal — Tech CEOs in Europe are urging region al countries to take bolder action to tackle Big Tech's dominance and counter reliance on the U.S. for critical technologies like artificial intelligence after Donald Trump's electoral win.

The Republican politician's victory was a key topic among prominent tech bosses at the Web Summit conference in Lisbon, Portugal. Many attendants said they're unsure of what to expect from the U.S. president-elect, citing this unpredictability as a core challenge at present.

Andy Yen, CEO of Swiss VPN developer Proton, says Europe should echo American protectionism and adopt a more "Europe-first" approach to technology — in part to reverse the trend of the last two decades, during which much of the Western world's most important technologies, from web browsing to smartphones, have become dominated by a handful of large U.S. tech firms.

VPNs, or virtual private networks, are services that encrypt data and mask a user's IP address to hide browsing activity and bypass censorship.

"It's time for Europe to step up," Yen told CNBC on the sidelines of Web Summit. "It's time to be bold. It's time to be more aggressive. And the time is now, because we now have a leader in the U.S. that is 'America-first,' so I think our European leaders should be 'Europe-first.'"

One key push for the past decade from the European Union has been to take legal action and introduce tough new regulations to tackle the dominance of large technology players, such as Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta.

As Trump prepares to come into power for a second mandate, concerns have now mounted that Europe might reel in its tough approach to tech giants out of fear of retaliation from the new administration.

Proton's Yen, for one, urged the EU not to water down its attempts  to rein in America's tech giants.

"Europe has been thinking in a very globalist mindset. They're thinking we need to be fair to everybody, we need to open our market to everybody, we need to play fair, because we believe in fairness," he told CNBC.

"Well, guess what? The Americans and the Chinese didn't get the memo. They have been playing extremely unfairly for the last 20 years. And now they have a president that is extremely 'America-first.'" 

Mitchell Baker, former CEO of American open internet non-profit Mozilla Foundation, said the EU's DMA has led to meaningful changes for the Firefox browser, with activity increasing since Google implemented a "choice screen" on Android phones that enables users to select their search engine.

"The change in Firefox new users and market share on Android is noticeable," Baker said. "That's nice for us — but it's also an indicator of how much power and centralized distribution that these companies have."

She added, "This change in usage because of one choice screen isn't the full picture. But it is an indicator of the kind of things that consumers can't choose and that businesses can't build successfully because of the way the tech industry is structured right now."

Thomas Plantenga, CEO of Lithuania-headquartered used clothing resale app Vinted, urged Europe to take the "right choices" to ensure the continent can "fend for ourselves" and does not get "left behind."

"If you look very realistically at what countries do, they try to take care of themselves and they try to form coalitions to be stronger themselves, and as a coalition be stronger," Plantenga told CNBC in an interview. "We have a lot of very talented, well-educated people."

Another theme that attracted much chatter on the ground at Web Summit was the idea of "AI sovereignty" — which refers to countries and regions localizing critical computing infrastructure behind AI services, so that these systems become more reflective of regional languages, cultures and values.

With Microsoft becoming a key player in AI, concerns have surfaced that the maker of the Windows operating system and Office productivity tools suite has secured a dominant position when it comes to foundational AI tools.

The tech giant is a key backer behind ChatGPT maker OpenAI, whose technology it also heavily uses in its own products.

For some startups, Microsoft's decision to embrace AI has resulted in harmful, anti-competitive effects.

Last year, Microsoft hiked the fees it charges search engines to use its Bing Search APIs, which allow developers access to the tech giant's backend search infrastructure — in part because of higher costs attached to its AI-powered search features.

"They're gradually reducing our revenue — we're still relying on them — and that reduces our capacity to do things," Christian Kroll, CEO of sustainability-focused search engine Ecosia, told CNBC. "Microsoft is a very fierce competitor."

CNBC has reached out to Microsoft for comment.

Ecosia recently partnered with fellow search provider Qwant to build a European search index and reduce dependence on U.S. Big Tech to deliver web browsing results.

Meanwhile, the European Union's AI Act, a landmark artificial intelligence law with global implications, introduces new transparency requirements and restrictions on companies developing and using AI.

The laws are likely to have a big impact on predominantly U.S. tech firms, since they're the ones doing much of the development of — and investment in — AI.

With Trump set to come into power, it's unclear what that could mean for the global AI regulatory landscape.

Shelley McKinley, chief legal officer of code repository platform GitHub, said she can't predict what Trump will do in his second term — but that businesses are planning for a range of different scenarios in the meantime.

"We will learn in the next few months what President-elect Trump will say, and in January we will start seeing some of what President Trump does in this area," McKinley said during a CNBC-moderated panel earlier this week.

"I do think it is important that we all, as society, as businesses, as people, continue to think about the different scenarios," she added. "I think, as with any political change, as with any world change, we're still all thinking about what are all of the scenarios we might operate."