The issue of a sovereign European cloud is not new. We remember the inglorious fates of CloudWatt or Numergy a few years ago. Also, the news of the creation of the Gaia-X project, carried by the Franco-German couple, was scrutinized from the start.
With the ambition to establish itself as a European alternative to Azure, AWS & Google Cloud, this consortium of some 300 companies held its first plenary session on 22 nd January 2021.
While on paper the initiative looked great, the project began to arouse misunderstanding and criticism when it began to include American and Asian players: Microsoft, Google, Alibaba, Huawei …
Gaia-X spokespersons, however, want to reassure and recall the principles that will apply to all members, including non-Europeans: compliance with European governance rules, board of directors made up of companies with their headquarters in Europe only…
Yet by opening the door to the very people it was meant to counter, didn’t the Gaia-X project bring the wolf into the fold? Google is making no secret of its opposition to European data protection principles, the Chinese government has reaffirmed its grip on Alibaba’s management, and Palantir’s data processing raises many questions.
While the roadmap announced on January 22, 2021 is very ambitious, it remains to be seen whether, in this already matured digital world, can Europe create its own path and offer a real alternative to the American and Asian giants.
Sources: Journal du Net , Portail de L’IE, DataNews