BRUSSELS — The European Union is scrambling to deepen its tech ties with countries such as Brazil and South Korea to offset the bloc’s reliance on U.S. technology.

The European Commission’s top tech official, Henna Virkkunen, travels to Brazil on Thursday and Friday to launch a new digital partnership with the country, while the bloc also announced stronger collaboration with South Korea on artificial intelligence during the EU-South Korea summit on Wednesday.

The EU wants to do business with countries with an “open market,” that are promoting “secure technologies” and that are “committed to a rules-based digital world,” Virkkunen told POLITICO in an exclusive interview ahead of her Brazil visit.

Last week, the Commission presented its tech sovereignty package to build up Europe’s own capacity in areas such as cloud services and chips. On top of pursuing technological sovereignty by itself, Brussels is also betting on a network of partnerships across the globe to reduce Europe’s reliance on U.S. technology.

The European Union already has digital partnerships with Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Canada. It is accelerating its digital diplomacy by adding a new one with Brazil.

“Brazil is among the top ten countries when we speak about markets for technologies,” Virkkunen said. “There are 160 million internet users in Brazil. So, it’s a huge market, and they are investing heavily.”

Roughly each year, the EU holds a digital partnership council with each partner country to discuss how to work together on a range of topics that differ from country to country. For Brazil, it is eyeing cooperation on data, connectivity, cybersecurity, online platforms and the protection of minors.

Virkkunen will also pitch the EU to a business audience at the Web Summit in Rio on Thursday. She said she would play up the EU’s large market and its predictability.

The next step is to turn the partnerships into a network of countries — other than the U.S. and China — that team up on tech topics and boost tech business with one another.

“We are willing to work toward that, that we could also have more that kind of multilateral cooperation between our partner countries,” Virkkunen said.

For now, talks have largely taken place with governments, but the Commission wants to bring in businesses as well to boost trade.

Digital trade

The EU is also striking digital trade deals with two of its partner countries, Singapore and South Korea, to update trade cooperation in the digital era.

The EU on Wednesday signed a digital trade agreement with South Korea, negotiated last year, which covers data flows, security around personal data and business-enabling technologies such as digital contracts. The bloc will also deepen its AI collaboration with the country.

“The EU and Korea are already working very closely in this area on certain aspects, on safety, on governance, on regulatory issues,” an EU official said ahead of the summit. “We want to broaden this cooperation across research and innovation and actually across the wider AI stack.”

The EU’s rapid progress in its network of digital partnerships stands in stark contrast to the standstill in tech ties with the U.S.

The U.S. has repeatedly attacked the EU’s tech rulebooks. The bloc decided to join Pax Silica, a U.S.-led club on AI chips, only months after the initial launch, and both sides are still pondering what form talks on digital issues could take.

“We are continuing the discussion with the [U.S.] about the digital dialogue,” Virkkunen said. “Currently, we don’t have any kind of format for that.”

She described the relations between the U.S. and the EU in the field of tech as “professional.”

Koen Verhelst contributed reporting.

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