EU tech sovereignty may prove an “illusion” in an AI world dominated by China and the US, a Chinese expert has argued, urging Beijing to seize the opportunity during Donald Trump’s second term to make its products indispensable to middle powers.The past few weeks have seen a number of efforts by middle powers to try to control their AI technology stacks.Last week, the European Union rolled out its Technological Sovereignty Package in a bid to make the bloc “a global leader” in artificial intelligence and protect its “digital independence”. For the EU, tech sovereignty is the ability “to develop, control and scale … critical technologies, infrastructure, services and data”.And on June 4, Canada designated “building the Canadian sovereign AI foundation” as one of the pillars of its C$2.3 billion (US$1.6 billion) national AI strategy.Japan, South Korea and India are also working towards strengthening their autonomy over artificial intelligence.Those efforts come amid growing unease among these countries about becoming bystanders in the Beijing-Washington battle for AI supremacy.