Tyson Barker
In the 1960s, mainframe computers, aeronautics, space, nuclear research, and semiconductors occupied the front lines of geopolitics. Powers in Europe were wracked by the thought of suffering a “technological gap” with the United States. Authoritarian leaders accused the United States of trying to use technological power as a vehicle for domination, even as authoritarian tech was on the rise in new domains and attracting support across the global south. European leaders called for a new European technological community to emancipate Europeans from U.S. tech dependence. At the same time, some Europeans pushed U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration to establish a U.S.-European committee to close ranks on technological cooperation.
Today, the tech race has again become a key dimension of power and ideological competition, with artificial intelligence, chips, digital platforms, data flows, 5/6G, cloud and edge computing, the Internet of Things, blockchain, biotech, and quantum technologies at the forefront. This week, as U.S. President Joe Biden made his first trip to Europe for the G-7, NATO, and U.S.-European Union summits, his administration must find a way to work with the EU—despite their differences—to recast how the world’s two most important democratic tech powers approach digital governance.
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