In the US, figures like Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and Elon Musk have moved from disrupting markets to shaping state functions – fusing venture capital, technology, and political ideology into an integrated model of governance. That model – spanning cloud infrastructure, AI systems, financial platforms, drones, and satellites – is now being extended to Europe. How should democratic societies understand this formation, and what would it take to develop credible alternatives before the infrastructure becomes structurally entrenched? At re:publica 2026, Francesca Bria discusses the authoritarian stack and its implications for Germany and Europe.
“The Authoritarian Stack”, is a project funded by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Future of Work. It includes a recently published database and online report and examines how US tech firms are operating as state-like powers — writing procurement rules, winning public contracts, and exporting their governance model to Europe. Palantir software is already deployed by regional police forces across Bavaria, Hessen, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Baden-Württemberg. Anduril’s partnership with Rheinmetall on drone development raises further questions about where decisions over critical infrastructure are being made, and by whom. Bria argues that Europe’s response must be structural: investment in public-interest technology, open standards, and democratic oversight frameworks — the building blocks of a genuinely sovereign digital infrastructure.
Francesca Bria is an innovation economist working at the intersection of technology, geopolitics, economics and society. She is an Honorary Professor at UCL’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose and a Senior Fellow at Stiftung Mercator in Berlin, where she leads the EuroStack Initiative on Europe’s digital sovereignty. She serves as a Board Member of the European Innovation Council (EIC) and President of the Innovation Agency of Emilia-Romagna (ART-ER). She is a member of the International AI Council established by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain. Previously, she was President of the Italian National Innovation Fund (CDP Venture Capital) and a board member of RAI, Italy’s public broadcaster. From 2015 to 2019, she served as Chief Digital Technology and Innovation Officer for the City of Barcelona, where she led the Barcelona Digital City Agenda. Her work has been widely recognized, including being named Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, listed among the Top 50 Women in Tech by Forbes, and honored as Culture Person of the Year 2020 by F.A.Z. She was also ranked among the world’s top 20 most influential figures in digital government by Apolitical and identified as one of the 28 power players driving Europe’s tech revolution by Politico.