BRUSSELS, March 17 (Reuters) - Airbus, Dassault

Systemes and more than 90 smaller European technology

firms and lobby groups have urged European Commission President

Ursula von der Leyen to create a sovereign infrastructure fund

to ramp up public investments in cutting-edge technologies.

The companies and groups said recent U.S. and EU

developments and U.S. measures underscored the urgency of Europe

taking steps to maintain its strategic autonomy in key sectors.

"Europe needs to recover the initiative, and become more

technologically independent across all layers of its critical

digital infrastructure," they said in an open letter dated March

14 seen by Reuters.

This ranged from logical infrastructure - applications,

platforms, media, AI frameworks and models - to physical

infrastructure such as chips, computing, storage and

connectivity, they added.

"Europe's current multiple dependencies create security and

reliability risks, compromise our sovereignty and hurt our

growth," they said.

The letter said a sovereign infrastructure fund was key to

financing such an ambitious goal, especially in the

capital-intensive parts of the value chain such as quantum

technologies and chips.

Doubts about U.S. commitment to its European allies and

competition from China have prompted the European Union to

explore various options for jointly funding defence projects,

energy networks and critical medicines.

The letter also proposed that governments adopt a "buy

European" policy in procurement tenders to drum up demand and

encourage businesses to invest.

"The aim is not to exclude non-European players, but to

create space where European suppliers can legitimately compete

(and justify investment)," it said.

Signatories to the letter include French cloud services

provider OVH Cloud and its peers in other EU countries, the

European Software Institute, European Startup Network, German AI

Association, the Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX) and French

public investment bank BPI France.

The letter was also addressed to EU tech chief Henna

Virkkunen.