A new global study on sovereign AI, commissioned by Dell Technologies, highlights the key challenges for Europe.

International Data Corporation (IDC), in partnership with Dell Technologies, has published a new global study exploring how European governments and public sector organisations are approaching sovereign and agentic AI and what it will take to deploy the technology at scale.

To gather data for the report, IDC surveyed 258 government IT decision-makers across several countries, including France, Germany and the UK. Respondent organisations included national civilian governments, military and defence organisations, regional, state and local government organisations, research institutes and private companies closely tied to government operations.

What was discovered is that, while leaders in Europe’s public sector are showing strong drive in accelerating modernisation through agentic AI, they also face a critical gap in the skills that are needed to operate these advanced technologies. According to the research, this is creating a significant divide between ambition and operational capacity.

Nearly 70pc of European public sector IT leaders who contributed to the report explained that their workforce is unable to keep pace with evolving technology, and more than 74pc believe agentic AI will accelerate AI adoption for government and public services. 

“This IDC study confirms what we are hearing from our public sector customers across Europe – the agentic AI era is here, but the biggest challenge is operational readiness,” said Nicole Jefferson, the vice president of government affairs at Dell Technologies. 

“Our role is to provide the easy button for governments, delivering seamless, secure and scalable AI infrastructure that bridges the skills gap and gives them the confidence to adopt next-generation applications.”

Challenge and opportunity

According to the research, there is clear intent to advance capabilities and conviction is matched by near-term investment plans. More than 50pc of contributors have plans in place to allocate part of their budget to agentic AI and 64pc have an investment strategy for broader sovereign AI technologies within the next 18 months. 

This was found to be driven largely by the belief that investment will bring about “expected benefits”, such as enhanced operational efficiency (57pc) and improved productivity (51pc). However, there is also a strong belief that the rapid push for adoption brings with it major operational challenges for European organisations and their leaders.

According to the report, the skills gap has been identified as a significant risk when attempting to implement AI by almost half of participating organisations, especially as shortages were found mostly in roles deemed to be essential. 69pc admitted they struggle to hire cybersecurity specialists and 52pc are unable to find the necessary generative AI specialists needed to manage and secure advanced systems.

“Agentic AI is moving quickly from concept to practical consideration for government and executive decision-makers,” said Alan Webber, the programme vice president for national security, defence and intelligence at IDC. 

“The study shows strong momentum, with public sector leaders looking to autonomous systems to help close skills gaps, ease workforce pressure and accelerate AI adoption. However, that momentum is conditional. Governments will only move at scale if they have confidence in the security, privacy, sovereignty and infrastructure foundations underpinning these systems.”

Shared ambition, different paths

The report also suggested that its data shows consensus on a need for “controlled cooperation” and that sovereign AI will have to be developed through partnership. 58pc of European respondents to the survey agreed that public-private collaboration from inception is the most effective way forward; this was comparable to the 61pc of global leaders who felt the same way. 

For this to be achieved, however, significant barriers to European success will have to be overcome – primarily data-sharing constraints (69pc) and a lack of clear legal frameworks (58pc), according to the research’s respondents. 

The IDC and Dell Technologies report also referenced how, in Europe, there is a shared ambition but different paths are set to be taken. Take, for example, Germany, where 44pc of public sector organisations are planning generative and agentic AI deployments, compared to 36pc in France. German respondents also showed greater confidence in agentic AI’s role in government AI adoption at 39pc, versus only one-quarter in France.

One-quarter of respondents based in France primarily believe inadequate funding for skills development and training is a considerable problem, compared to only 11pc in Germany, while almost half of German public sector organisations find headcount freezes and hiring restrictions to be a concern, compared to 38pc of participants based in France. 

The report said, “As governments and enterprises move from experimentation to scaled AI deployment, success depends on disciplined control. Leaders must determine where data and models reside, how AI is governed and how accountability is maintained as regulations, internal policies and operational demands evolve.”

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