Estonia Considers Alternatives to US Technology in Public Sector
The review coincides with the State IT Center (RIT) continuing to transfer government and agency workstations to a centrally managed, cloud-based system, which is currently built largely on Microsoft 365.
RIT Director Ergo Tars said there are no plans to fully abandon US providers, but alternative solutions will be tested through a pilot project starting this fall.
Tars explained that the assessment is part of broader European discussions on digital sovereignty and the potential risks of dependence on non-European IT infrastructure, including concerns over data security, costs, and service disruptions.
“If a decision were made in the European Union that American products are no longer trusted, then what situation would we be in... In that case there would not be much difference whether it is Microsoft, Amazon or Google. Then we would have to look purely at Europe-based products,” he said.
The initiative reflects similar efforts in other European countries. France, for example, has announced plans to replace Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and other foreign video conferencing tools with its own platform, Visio, across government departments by 2027, citing security, cost savings, and digital independence.
RIT estimates that around 15,000 of Estonia’s roughly 25,000 government workstations could transition to the centrally managed system within two years, though officials note that a full move away from US technology is unlikely in the near term.
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