A major five-year effort to build a technology base for Europe free of U.S. influence foundered amid conflicting national strategies and powerful corporate lobbying. As Europe’s leaders once again discuss tackling American tech dependence, those involved in the project to build a European cloud warn against repeating past mistakes. The Gaia-X initiative was “a crushing failure, a colossal waste of time, and just as many years gained for the hyperscalers — in other words, an industrial disaster,”