The missing layer in Europe’s AI strategy: data ownership

Sovereignty isn’t just policy, it's operational: the companies that control their data pipelines will be the ones that capture value in the AI economy.

As France  and Germany push digital sovereignty up the policy agenda, a more practical question is emerging: who actually owns the data driving Europe’s AI systems? 

As models become increasingly commoditised, competitive advantage is shifting to the data layer, thereby raising the stakes around who owns and controls it. In an AI-driven economy, proprietary data — not models — creates an opportunity for competitive advantage.  

Analytics startup Countly is a product analytics and customer engagement platform built on an open-source, self-hosted foundation.  

The company helps organisations reduce reliance on third-party platforms by enabling them to capture, analyse, and act on their own user data—while maintaining full control over it. It operates on the belief that data privacy and actionable insights are fundamentally interconnected.

I spoke to Onur Alp Soner, CEO and co-founder of Countly, to learn more. 

The business opportunity

Embedding data sovereignty into a company’s commercial strategy can strengthen product differentiation, build regulatory trust, and unlock new partnership opportunities, particularly in sectors where data control is critical, such as healthcare, finance, and public services.

Countly’s platform is built on an open-source, self-hosted foundation that helps companies collect and process operational and usage data from their software products, essentially enabling them to understand how users interact with apps and services and improve those experiences. 

Soner sees his company as an early mover. Founded in 2013, Countly was built around self-hosted analytics long before data sovereignty became a defining issue in Europe. 

According to Soner:

“Basically, our main focus is data control and data ownership. We want companies to have complete control over the data they collect — that’s why we’ve existed since day one.”

He contends that the conversation has simply evolved in waves. When he founded Countly, he started from a simple idea: if you don’t control your data, you don’t control your systems. 

From GDPR to AI: how the data ownership debate evolved

Long before AI regulation entered the conversation, Soner was already working with European organisations in finance, telecoms, healthcare, and the public sector that needed to know precisely where their behavioural data lives, who can access it, and how it’s used.

“Right now, the spotlight is on AI. Before that, it was GDPR. Even when we started, the issue was that products in the market were collecting your data and giving you free analytics in exchange for using that data for their advertising business.

I’m not just talking about Google — there were other competitors too. One of the most prominent was Flurry. That model was fundamental at the time.

What’s changed is that different events — whether regulation or growing concerns about US companies using your data — have brought more attention to the importance of ownership. So we started Countly with the idea that businesses should control their own data. We didn’t want a third party using that data for purposes the business doesn’t even know about.”

AI is making data ownership economically viable

There’s been a long-standing idea that people or companies should own and monetise their data by extracting economic value from data assets, but that model never fully materialised in earlier innovation waves like IoT and website browsing (Gener8 is an interesting outlier).  

But AI is now changing the equation, with the data that fuels machine learning systems, as a highly valuable company asset, whether directly (selling data) or indirectly (using data to generate revenue). 

However, for Soner, that positioning around data ownership hasn’t always been straightforward. Of the big themes — data monetisation, regulation, and AI — he believes AI is the most promising for helping businesses understand the importance of the data layer and data control.

“Before that, it was really hard to market concepts like privacy, data ownership, and data control. It always ended up being framed as a regulation issue.

But it’s not just about regulation. Your data is the only truly unique thing about your business.”

“Your data is your only moat”: the challenge for startups.

However, the challenge is that large players give away so much for free. How do you compete with that?

Soner admits that for large companies, it might be easier, but for startups, it’s very difficult to say: ‘We won’t use all these free tools — we’ll stick to our principles.’ That’s a hard stance to maintain.”

AI doesn’t create value in isolation. Rather, it amplifies the quality of the data it is trained on. Without control over that data, companies risk outsourcing their long-term competitive advantage.

The missing layer in Europe’s AI debate

So what are we talking about when we talk about a sovereign data layer? At the heart of Soner’s argument is a simple framework where the AI ecosystem exists as three layers:

• First, compute: GPUs, infrastructure, and physical machines.
• Second, models: LLMs like OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral.
• Third, the data layer.

“The first two layers get most of the attention. But the data layer is just as important and arguably more so — and it’s not being discussed enough.”

He contends that conversations with large companies, this often becomes a regulation issue: 

“Because of GDPR, we can’t do this.” But the real question is — why are you sending that data to external tools in the first place? This is operational data that feeds your AI models. It’s what makes AI valuable. AI amplifies whatever you already have — or don’t have — as a business.

But because everyone is afraid of missing out on AI, they focus on the exciting parts and ignore the “boring” ones: data control, data cleaning, and organisation-wide tracking strategies. Those are actually the critical conversations.”

Making sovereignty sell: from regulation to user value

So how do you incentivise companies to prioritise data ownership while still staying competitive? Soner points to Apple as a rare example of successfully turning privacy into a product feature.

“They communicate clearly: your data stays on your device. That’s the right approach. It’s not about saying, “We’re a German company, we follow strict regulations.” Customers don’t care about that. They care about what’s in it for them.” So you need to translate data sovereignty into tangible user benefits:

“This is how we protect your data. This is how we keep it in our infrastructure. And you still get great functionality.” That’s a much more understandable story.”

Europe wants control but runs on foreign tech

But can a European company really claim digital sovereignty if it relies on US infrastructure, analytics, or models? Soner admits that even Countly, which is building infrastructure for this purpose, still relies on technologies from US or Chinese companies.  This creates a paradox. He admits:

“There’s no way around it. Take databases — almost all major ones are US-based. So the question isn’t whether you use external technology—it’s how you use it. It’s about layering.”

Rather than full independence, data sovereignty becomes a deliberate architectural strategy, deciding what stays in-house and what can be outsourced. For example, you can control your data flows, decide what leaves your system and build proprietary datasets. He suggests that while you can use tools like Google Analytics, you should be mindful of what data you are sending and why. 

“Maybe you intentionally only use such a tool for high-level metrics, while keeping detailed user data in your own infrastructure. Because data is where long-term competitive advantage comes from.

Companies like Instagram, Amazon, Uber, and Airbnb are all data businesses. If you blindly use tools without thinking about your data flows, you lose that advantage.”

Make data ownership part of your company culture

Soner suggests that even for small companies, if you build data ownership into your story early, it becomes part of your culture.

“At Countly, every decision goes through that lens of data ownership. You can’t just say, “Let’s use this SaaS tool” or “Let’s plug in this AI.” There’s always a level of mindfulness. That becomes part of how the organisation grows.”

Europe can build, but can it keep its companies?

Europe’s challenge is not building companies, but keeping them.

Looking ahead, I wanted to understand what a truly sovereign European digital infrastructure would look like. Soner explained that in the first instance, Europe needs strong infrastructure: data centres, electricity, and networking.

“Everything else depends on that.”

However, this can not be considered in isolation from European talent. 

He asserts that while Europe is already building strong companies, the migration of companies to the US for capital and a broader ecosystem is a bigger issue, admitting, “We almost did the same ourselves.”

“So the key question becomes: how do you make it attractive for founders to stay? That comes down to funding, incentives, and ecosystem support. If Europe can strengthen that, it can retain talent and companies—and that’s probably the most strategic investment it can make right now.”

Stop benchmarking the US and China and start building leverage

In terms of competitiveness, Soner asserts that we’re focusing on the wrong thing and that, while the debate often becomes “the US is ahead, China is ahead,” the real race right now is about AGI and who gets there first.

“Still, that doesn’t mean Europe should wait. We can’t wait for others to define the future,” he says.

“We need to build our own systems, support our own companies, and retain our talent. If we do that, it’s perfectly fine to use global technologies—but on our own terms.

Control of the data layer — not just the models — will define who captures value in AI.”

The real opportunity for Europe lies not in competing on models, but in owning the data layer that underpins them.