BRUSSELS (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.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by David Holmes and Jan Harvey)