These public funds should be subject to conditionality, and not be spent on “AI hyperscalers” or “lighting-fast growing unicorns” that eventually reproduce exploitative business models and further consolidate the economic and political power of large tech corporations. Instead, they must be reserved for open digital infrastructure, software, hardware and standards, similar to what the NLnet Foundation and the Sovereign Tech Agency are already doing on a smaller scale.

Boring. Good. Boring is good and Europe does boring well.