Europe's cloud minnows tell Brussels to stop big tech 'sovereignty-washing'

Execs from 24 European cloud and digital service providers are urging the European Commission to legislate for real tech sovereignty – not the illusion of it – in the upcoming Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA). The CEOs, drawn from tech trade association CISPE (Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe), signed a …

[Guy de Loimbard]

Well, if there's one thing I've learned over the last 10 or so years

Is that the EU is getting better at defining regulatory frameworks that appear, at least on the surface, to be well thought out.

Delivery of said regulations and actual policing/compliance checks are another matter all together.

The hyperscalers will see this as a threat and will likely do what they are good at, bluff, bluster, market, obfuscate etc., to maintain dominance.

Also, be wary of any European sovereign provider being bought out by VC/PE.

This will be an ongoing battle, perhaps a worthwhile one, it wouldn't hurt the rest of the planet to be less reliant on North American tech.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Well, if there's one thing I've learned over the last 10 or so years

"Also, be wary of any European sovereign provider being bought out by VC/PE."

If contracts are based on sovereignty with penalty clauses including termination with compensation by the provider if the provider fails to maintain it the temptation to take over is much reduced. Not eliminated because there could be motivation to reduce competition rather than buy contracts but it would make it expensive with limited value to the reduced competition.

[elsergiovolador]

Letter

They don't need a letter, but brown envelope. Thick one and fill it with bling.

That's how you get change.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Letter

Trust me, you won't get much for an brown envelope filled with change.

No, wait..

:)

[heyrick]

most of them American

...most of them based in a country that has repeatedly shown no interest in European laws, rules, and regulations; but rather seems to expect us (in sovereign countries on another continent) to abide by their laws, rules, and regulations (or total lack thereof).

There, fixed that for you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: most of them American

I never thought I'd witness the return of the "Americans, go home" phrase but here we are. Sigh.

[LogicGate]

Re: most of them American

Well,

the USAians worked hard to get this status back. They have truly Made America Grate again

Edit: Spelling

[Catch-the-Pigeon]

new AWS services

the hyperscalers know this shift is coming and AWS recently announced a new services External Key Management (EKM), which allow companies to store their master encryption keys outside of the cloud environment. This helps improve data security and gives organisations a quicker—though not complete—step toward achieving sovereignty. I'm sure others will follow with something similar.

https://eviden.com/insights/press-releases/eviden-kms-now-available-on-aws-european-sovereign-cloud/

[Rich 2]

Off topic

….but considering the world’s single manufacturer of chip-making equipment is vey much European, we should also be establishing one or two chip-making factories here to cut reliance on the far east and the mob to the west.

We managed it with Airbus - very successfully!

We should do the same with chip manufacturing

And huge apologies for being off topic - I do think the server farm sovereignty issue is important but is just one symptom of a general issue with Europe (and I include the UK here - it’s not just the EU). We invent some amazing stuff and then let it drift overseas for someone to sell it back to us!