Europe appears lagging behind in the struggle for the technological hegemony of the planet, where great corporate titans of the United States and China compete. The Asian giant dominates internet commerce and generates 40% of international transactions online, while the United States is better placed in cloud computing, in the well-known cloud, in data processing and artificial intelligence.
During the pandemic, Europe has gained prominence in the development of vaccines together with the United States and, according to the experts present at the Future Forum, it also stands out in the challenge of the energy transition and in the field of 5G. Its main competitor there is China, which is the current leader in patents and accounts for 87% of world connections.
Recovering the European leadership in the technological career has to happen “absolutely”, according to Fernando Fernández, professor of Economics at IE Business School, “due to a change in the fiscal model”. The European tax system, in his opinion, “penalizes innovators.” Santiago Carbó, Professor of Economic Analysis at the University of Granada, considers that “this European vision of protecting the consumer may be generating a competitive disadvantage”. “With excessive regulation,” he indicates, “we are not going to grow.”
Innovation and financing go together, and there Europe has a unique opportunity with Next Generation funds to improve positions in the digital economy compared to the predominant role of other regions. In that same sense, Águeda Parra, analyst of the geopolitical and technological environment of China, estimates that “Europe has to generate an entrepreneurial model focused on developing the technological capacity to retain talent and prevent it from going to other more attractive poles such as Silicon Valley.”