Press release. The new geopolitical scenarios, the economic situation, possible cyber vulnerabilities, and the importance of operational resilience will direct companies to strengthen their strategies with the help of new technologies. T-Systems, digitalization services division of the Deutsche Telekom Group, has identified 7 technological trends that will contribute to improving the competitiveness, efficiency, agility and economic development of companies next 2026.
Seven key technology trends for 2026
Digital sovereignty
Global tensions, supply chain disruptions and growing cyber threats have led the European Union to consolidate European digital sovereignty as a strategic priority. Companies are working to develop technology and create robust digital environments that allow Europe to have its own ecosystem and architecture in line with the regulatory, cybersecurity and data protection compliance required by community regulations such as the GDPR, the Data Act or the AI Act.
Cloud soberano
Continued migration to the cloud will continue to be a relevant approach to ensure greater flexibility and operational efficiency for organizations. But in the face of new geopolitical economic and legal factors, companies will seek to provide maximum security environments with a sovereign cloud infrastructure that adapts to the legal, operational and security requirements of the jurisdictions of both Europe and each of its member states. This will ensure that data, workloads and infrastructure are controlled and managed by trusted providers within the borders of the particular country or economic area.
IA sovereign
The potential of AI and the efficiency of Generative AI are undeniable. Today they offer increasingly complex use cases applied to all industries: from the automation of industrial processes, to predictive maintenance of machinery or quality control; predictive analytics in the field of smart cities; or efficiency in the management of administrative procedures, the development of personalized services, or the improvement in health diagnoses and treatments. The arrival of large language models, the ability to analyze and understand huge amounts of data or the operation of chatbots will require great capabilities and performance without compromising data protection laws. In this context, the combination of AI and the cloud will be essential. To make it possible, we are already beginning to see the first relevant announcements in this regard, such as the creation of the first European Industrial AI Cloud, which is being developed by Deutsche Telekom together with NVIDIA, with an infrastructure of 10,000 state-of-the-art GPUs to accelerate the development of a sovereign and high-performance AI cloud.
Cybersecurity
Anticipating virtual threats and potential information hijackings will be crucial to strengthening operational resilience across industries and ensuring data protection and confidentiality. Companies will need to apply a comprehensive approach to address the challenge posed by the convergence of Information Technologies (IT) and Operational Technologies (OT). For its part, the use of AI, automation, Machine Learning, or the adoption of XDR (Extended Detection & Response) techniques will be decisive for the detection of threat patterns in real time. Furthermore, the securitization of AI will make it possible to avoid data manipulation, the risk of exploitable biases or stop advanced cyber attacks. To mitigate these challenges, it will be vital to adopt security-by-design approaches, regular audits, and defense frameworks adapted to the evolution of AI. Added to this will be the application of proactive measures such as Threat Hunting, external management of encryption keys or the implementation of Threat Intelligence to face the challenges posed by quantum computing.
Data spaces
Data will remain an asset of great value for companies and citizens. Ecosystems or data spaces will take on special prominence to facilitate data sharing and federated management of data in a reliable and secure manner between providers and consumers. This will make it possible to promote the implementation of transversal services, promote the data economy, improve planning, decision-making or promote public-private collaboration in many areas=.
European alliances and strategic partners
Technological progress towards European sovereignty requires alliances between organizations and agreements with strategic partners to promote the competitiveness that the European Union needs. The first associations such as ESTIA, the European Sovereign Technology Industry Alliance, are already beginning to emerge; But other initiatives have also been created such as GAIA-X, or the International Data Spaces Association (IDSA) to promote an open, federated and interoperable data infrastructure that guarantees digital sovereignty. In this context, establishing alliances with technology providers will help align with European strategic priorities, and will allow the promotion of consortia and projects financed with community funds.
Technology for sustainability or ESG measures
Sustainability is not a passing trend, but a business imperative to move towards decarbonization, combat climate change and improve the planet. The European Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) is framed in this context, which requires organizations to report how they integrate sustainability into their corporate strategy with quantifiable data. Technological platforms adapted to the needs of each company will be crucial, as they will help define, visualize, measure and control sustainability indicators and design an optimal ESG strategy.
