{"id":541541,"date":"2026-06-24T10:49:45","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T08:49:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silicon-saxony.de\/ibm-ibm-report-highlights-challenges-for-companies-in-emea-on-the-path-to-ai-sovereignty\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T10:49:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T08:49:30","slug":"ibm-ibm-report-highlights-challenges-for-companies-in-emea-on-the-path-to-ai-sovereignty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silicon-saxony.de\/en\/ibm-ibm-report-highlights-challenges-for-companies-in-emea-on-the-path-to-ai-sovereignty\/","title":{"rendered":"IBM: IBM Report Highlights Challenges for Companies in EMEA on the Path to AI Sovereignty"},"content":{"rendered":"

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With 83% of CEOs worldwide believing that AI sovereignty is now an essential part of corporate strategy, and as the political landscape in Europe continues to evolve, executives are under increasing pressure to explain exactly how data flows and how systems function; however, many lack the necessary overview to implement this effectively.<\/p>\n

Based on new findings from surveys of 370 executives in EMEA and 1,000 worldwide (70 in Germany), the study *The Calculus of AI Sovereignty* shows that only 10% of respondents in EMEA (13% in Germany) have a strong understanding of their company\u2019s dependencies across AI providers, models, and infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, operational flexibility has become a key factor for resilience in the face of global disruptions. Nevertheless, 73% of respondents in EMEA (65% in Germany) admit that switching their primary AI provider or  model would be difficult. Furthermore, 70% of executives in the region (70% in Germany) state that complying with data residency requirements and  sovereignty requirements across different geographic regions is challenging, which further complicates the transfer of AI systems or data between different environments.<\/p>\n

Underlining the importance of choice, 71% of executives surveyed in EMEA (79% in Germany) state that they would accept a 20% increase in costs to retain existing AI providers, provided this improves strategic flexibility.<\/p>\n

The majority of respondents in EMEA (81% \/ 85% in Germany) state that an outage of a primary AI provider lasting seven days or longer would have serious or critical consequences and would largely bring business operations to a standstill. The organizations surveyed reported an average of seven (six in Germany) AI-related operational disruptions over the past two years, with provider services being the most common cause in EMEA, and technical issues being the most common cause in Germany.<\/p>\n

Ana Paula Assis, IBM Senior Vice President and Chair, EMEA and APAC, writes in the study\u2019s foreword: \u201cThis report shows that today, only a small fraction of executives truly understand their AI dependencies. The gap between adoption and control widens precisely at the moment AI becomes indispensable. For companies, it is precisely the combination of open-source technology and control that enables selective sovereignty. They gain exactly the right level of authority where it matters most, without having to bear the costs of complete independence across the board.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of the organizations surveyed describe their AI environments as deliberately multi-vendor-oriented (73%). In practice, however, the diversity of vendors appears to be driven less by a targeted strategy than by internal and operational circumstances1:<\/p>\n