Understanding Cloud Infrastructure in Europe

The term "public cloud" has become synonymous with American hyperscalers, but this naming convention obscures a critical issue: these aren't truly public infrastructures but private platforms controlled by foreign corporations. For Europe to achieve digital sovereignty, we must first understand what cloud infrastructure really is and why it matters.

The Infrastructure Stack

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) forms the foundation of modern digital services. It provides the basic building blocks—compute power, storage, networking—that enable everything from simple websites to complex AI applications. When we talk about "taking back the cloud," we're talking about ensuring these fundamental building blocks are available under European control.

The evolution from IaaS to Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) shows how infrastructure providers gradually moved up the stack, offering increasingly sophisticated services. What started as virtual machines and storage buckets evolved into managed databases, AI services, and complete development platforms. This progression created powerful lock-in effects—the more specialized services you use, the harder it becomes to leave.

Why Infrastructure Sovereignty Matters

Control over digital infrastructure isn't just about data location—it's about economic independence, regulatory compliance, and strategic autonomy. When European companies rely entirely on non-European infrastructure:

• They're subject to foreign laws and regulations (like the US CLOUD Act)
• Their data can be accessed by foreign governments
• They're vulnerable to geopolitical tensions and trade disputes
• Innovation and value creation benefits flow outside Europe

Europe's Infrastructure Landscape

Europe isn't starting from zero. Providers like OVHcloud, Scaleway, and Hetzner offer competitive infrastructure services. National initiatives in Germany (Gaia-X), France (Cloud de Confiance), and other countries are building sovereign cloud capabilities.

What Europe needs isn't a copy of AWS or Azure, but something better: a cloud infrastructure that combines the innovation and ease-of-use of American platforms with European values of privacy, sustainability, and democratic governance.

#cloudinfrastructure #digitalsovereignty #europe #kubernetes #independence