EU-LAC Digital Alliance: Bi-regional Cooperation as a Force Multiplier for Tech-Enabled Growth

Earlier this month, the EU-Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) Digital Alliance convened in São Paulo, Brazil, for the third in a series of High-Level Policy Dialogues on AI and Online Platform Governance. Amid US-China trade disputes, global economic uncertainty and a lack of international consensus on key technology priorities, bi-regional collaboration between the EU and LAC on emerging and digital technologies is helping to reduce regulatory uncertainty, enhance competition, and foster connectivity between the two regions.

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The EU-LAC Digital Alliance was kickstarted in 2023 as a part of the New Agenda for Relations between the EU and Latin America and the Caribbean, a broader initiative focused on re-energizing bilateral relations between the regions. All EU Member States and 27 out of 33 LAC countries signed on to the accord, which outlines the joint pursuit of a “human-centric, sustainable and more prosperous digital future.” The Alliance features collaborative initiatives on governance and transparency, accessible high-speed connectivity, research and development, open data flows and business-to-business ties. 
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There is growing evidence that tech minilateralism, including bi-regional agreements like the EU-LAC Digital Alliance, can shore up signatories’ innovation ecosystems, connect businesses and markets that may not otherwise overlap, and circumvent technical barriers to trade. For one, digital free trade agreements and digital provisions have been shown to generate greater flows of digitally deliverable goods. An analysis of trade agreements among Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation countries found that each digital trade provision increased flows of digitally deliverable trade by 2.3%, totalling USD 40.1 billion between 2000 and 2018. Firm-level surveys from the Center for Strategic and International Studies corroborate this, finding that digital components in the updated Trans-Pacific Partnership bring value-add to businesses through consumer protection and free cross-border data flows.
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While not explicitly a digital free trade agreement, the EU-LAC Digital Alliance has the potential to foster similar benefits. It supports the development of Latin American’s digital infrastructure through the Bella II project, which will extend the submarine cable connecting the South American continent to Europe. To complement this improved fibre optic infrastructure, the Alliance establishes an EU-LAC Digital Accelerator that supports joint ventures between startups and corporations from the two regions. 
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The most recent Policy Dialogue centered heavily on artificial intelligence: how to deploy the technology to generate inclusive gains while effectively managing its inherent risks. The meeting accelerated the development of a bi-regional High Performance Computing (HPC) Network, which will diffuse scalable computational power to advance the performance of AI systems in the region. Participants visited the University of São Paolo’s Centre of AI and Machine Learning to learn about LATAM-GPT, a culturally-sensitive large language model supporting the region’s technological sovereignty over AI systems. The overarching goals of the Alliance, including improving data flows between countries and building business-to-business relationships, will also support the development of sound AI models through greater access to diverse training data and more reliable, secure platforms for deployment.
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Importantly, initiatives like the EU-LAC Digital Alliance are showing promise to make up ground where larger, multilateral efforts to collaborate on emerging technology are faltering. Large-scale international consensus on issues of emerging technology has proven difficult. In February, Washington and London both declined to sign on to a landmark declaration on inclusive and ethical AI at the 2025 Paris AI Action Summit. Meanwhile, within the World Trade Organization, there is considerable uncertainty over the future of the principle framework related to digital trade customs and duties as well as reluctance of key members to join a shared initiative on open data flows and source code. While not completely frictionless to arrange, bi-regional agreements can simplify some of the complexities inherent to negotiating multilateral frameworks while still generating returns for a large number of countries. The EU-LAC Digital Alliance, for example, connects as many as 54 countries between the two regions. 
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The EU-LAC Digital Alliance demonstrates that the geopolitical landscape of emerging technology is more complex than a simple US-China binary. Further, bi-regional cooperation can be an important force multiplier for countries looking to establish a competitive edge in a lucrative, if uncertain, global technological landscape.