Europe needs to invest close to $800 billion in its digital infrastructure to catch up with the United States and China, the European Union commissioner responsible for the issue said on Thursday.

Commissioner Guenther Oettinger also urged fellow Austrians to reject populist views that could deter technology experts from migrating to Europe to help drive development.

If Europe can't develop fiber-optic networks and next-generation high-speed 5G wireless applications and networks fast enough, "we will lose, because important technological applications will not be possible any longer in our industry," Oettinger said.

Amazon (AMZN.O) and Google (GOOGL.O) benefit from a U.S. wide data standard and have been able to collect data that gives them much broader knowledge of their customers' needs than most European companies, he said.

"Investments of 600-700 billion euros ($670-780 billion) are needed in the European area, according to our calculations," Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said at a panel at the European Alpbach forum, an annual conference in Austria.

This included investments in Switzerland, Ukraine and the western Balkans which are part of the pan-European infrastructure, he said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-digitalization-oettinger-idUSKCN1174M9