When a swarm of AI agents decided to hack the computation company Hugging Face in July, it took them six days. That event became a case study on how, and how fast, artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping both economic and power dynamics worldwide. When Mario Draghi published his report on how to re-establish European competitiveness, it took 729 days for Brussels to realize that only a fraction of his recommendations had been enacted.
Tomorrow will mark the second anniversary of the report’s presentation and, according to draghiwatch.eu, only 15.7 percent of his recommendations have been fully implemented so far. Tech and telecoms policy might have lost the “Draghi spirit” In digital and tech, the number of fully implemented recommendations is currently even lower: only 6.4 percent. Draghi made a point of putting technology at the core of EU reform, and zoomed in on telecoms as a critical sector to deliver tech sovereignty and growth for future decades to come.
Because 5G, fiber and future 6G networks are the backbone of our economies and societies at a time in which economic growth is driven by technology. As to the connectivity sector, less than half of Draghi’s telecom recommendations have been picked up in ongoing reforms and policy strategies. None has been implemented yet.
Worse, the recommendations that have moved forward so far are largely cost-creating for the industry, such as technology bans in 5G or forced phase-outs of copper networks. The measures that would directly boost investment remain limited, for now, mainly to spectrum proposals; more on this below. That implementation gap matters because the technologies now moving fastest are precisely the ones that depend on Europe’s connectivity foundations.
AI, cloud, defense tech and satellite connectivity are no longer separate policy files: they are becoming one industrial race. Four fights reshaping connectivity (and tech leadership) today Since Draghi’s report was published in 2024, innovation in connectivity has moved fast. The first fight is helping Europe claim its slice of the AI boom.
Telecom operators are doing their part: data must move between AI data centers and back to users, and advanced 5G and future 6G networks can help industry turn AI into productivity gains. A German manufacturing plant or an Italian port using 5G and AI applications should be able to compete with Chinese or American peers. The second fight is creating a healthy sovereign cloud market.
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