It’s a sunny Tuesday afternoon in Europe’s digital corridors, and the cloudscape is crackling with uncertainty and intrigue.
Europe’s relationship with US hyperscalers – those cloud behemoths known affectionately (and sometimes acidly) as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform – has always been a little complicated. They arrived with promise: affordability, scale, global reach, and a sticker price hard for any regional challenger to match. It was the ultimate cloud importer’s dream: limitless capacity, button-click deployment, and a heaping helping of Silicon Valley bravado.
But 2024 has thrown several digital spanners in the works. It’s no longer possible to stroll the length of a tech conference in Paris or Berlin without bumping into a nervous systems architect, clutching a double espresso and doomscrolling for news out of Washington. At April’s KubeCon Europe, the headlines weren’t about the performance of Kubernetes clusters or the latest AI darling. No, the talk of the town was sovereignty, uncertainty, and whispers of a mass exodus from the US cloud motherships.
But late-2023 and early-2024 saw a series of events that rattled this relationship. The world watched the US administration seesaw on tariffs, the news flickered with executive order drama, and the idea of “digital sovereignty” – once a niche concern for privacy geeks – went utterly mainstream.
“It’s amazing how fast the change has been,” confessed Mark Boost, CEO of UK-based cloud provider CIVO, at KubeCon EU. Boost isn’t just a cloud vendor; he’s a digital sovereignty evangelist and hyperscaler skeptic extraordinaire. Even so, he admitted being surprised by the sheer speed at which organizations began exploring cloud alternatives.
He isn’t alone. Nextcloud, a German collaboration software powerhouse, has seen a surge in customer interest. CEO Frank Karlitschek pinpoints a trio of anxieties fueling the frenzy: unpredictability from the US government (Will services be yanked at a political whim?), economic uncertainty (Are tariffs about to add choppy cost surges?), and – perhaps most arresting – fears of espionage and data exploitation.
“It’s a realistic fear nowadays,” Karlitschek says, referencing the steady drumbeat of stories about Muskian data dives and executive overreach. Only months ago, such anxieties might have been dismissed as the stuff of late-night Reddit threads. Now, they are strategic talking points in executive suites from Helsinki to Madrid.
Across the continent, tales abound: EU officials issued burner phones and “clean” laptops for US trips, national IT teams scheduling meetings about “data repatriation,” and procurement teams quietly asking vendors how quickly they can switch horses if the cloud winds change.
But turning interest into hard migration isn’t just about flipping a digital switch. Frank Karlitschek of Nextcloud warns that migration from big US hyperscalers is typically a marathon, not a sprint – measured in months or, more realistically, years.
"Organizations that are really threatened" by the current US regime, however, aren’t hanging about. They’re inquiring about emergency exits, replatforming strategies, and piecing together what an “all-European” infrastructure might look like – at speed.
It’s no small feat. The titans of the cloud – AWS, Microsoft, and Google – control some 70 percent of the European market. The umbilical cord, tightly wound after a decade of digital convergence, is hard to snip.
Jonathan Bryce, CEO of the Open Infrastructure Foundation, senses a sea change. The conversation about sovereignty and alternatives was always present, a low rumble under the surface. But lately, says Bryce, that background noise has become a full-blown roar. And with every fresh geopolitical shock – Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware, soaring licensing costs, the saga of foreign executive orders – new waves of customers start asking the big, uncomfortable questions.
“Where is my data, really? Who can access it? How fast could it be cut off – by regulator, by executive order, or by some new wave of transatlantic animus?”
Even those with a vested interest in the status quo are having second thoughts. Vultr, the plucky New Jersey-based hyperscaler with a growing European presence, reports surging demand for “sovereign infrastructure.” Their CMO, Kevin Cochrane, doesn’t mince words: Governments and enterprises now see business risk in relying on an oligopoly controlling the infrastructure on which their very digital existence depends.
The net result is a nervous, jittery market, with IT strategists eyeing the exits even as they acknowledge just how hard moving out would be.
What’s behind the shift? Three forces converge:
1. Legal Uncertainty: Thanks to the Schrems II ruling, the transatlantic legal musical chairs over data transfer continues. At any moment, a cross-border court case could invalidate the instruments by which European companies share data with US firms.
2. Political Volatility: What Washington giveth, Washington can (and will) taketh away. Post-2024, there’s an undeniable risk that a change in US administration could transform cloud service terms overnight, either through tariffs, new surveillance statutes, or executive fiat.
3. Cultural Reassessment: The old story of digital inevitability – “The US will always be ahead, resistance is futile!” – has lost its shine. As Jonathan Bryce put it, the technology now exists, and with the right motivation, Europe could close the gap.
But to dismiss Europe’s own up-and-comers is to overlook the force of necessity. In the wake of Broadcom’s VMware price shocks, entire IT teams have scrambled for alternatives. The Open Infrastructure Foundation has picked up defectors, as have regional vendors promising – loudly and legally – to keep data both physically and judicially rooted in Europe.
Perhaps more importantly, the very curve of innovation could shift. In a world where “location of your data” is a board-level concern, attributes like transparency, local compliance, and the avoidance of geopolitically-triggered outages become competitive differentiators.
It’s not just about moving gigabytes. Workflows, DevOps pipelines, and proprietary APIs have been stitched together over many years. Talent has been hired not for generic skills, but for expertise in specific hyperscaler services.
Nextcloud’s Karlitschek is utterly pragmatic. Unless your organization is “really threatened,” migration is best done stepwise, with months of planning and testing. Yet every fresh jolt – be it tariffs, regulatory action, or new surveillance scandals – tips another cohort of fence-sitters toward serious action.
Not so fast, says CIVO’s Boost. While the competitive landscape is evolving, the Big Three’s grasp remains formidable. Monopolies aren’t dismantled by a couple of high-profile defections. Still, the dynamic has changed. Regulators are watching – wary, finger poised over the penalty button.
Yet beneath the surface, movement is afoot. For now, much of it is confidential – strategy documents marked “Eyes Only,” procurement teams hunting for European partners, and more organizations than ever viewing “cloud repatriation” not as a retrograde step, but a hedge against chaos.
And old certainties are fading fast. “No way other countries catch up to the US hyperscalers?” Jonathan Bryce isn’t buying it. Technical capacity is not the issue, he asserts. Motivation is. And suddenly, motivation is everywhere.
For now, most European enterprises remain tethered to the Big Three, their cloud architectures rooted deep in US innovation soil. But each new flare–tariff scuffle, legal uncertainty, presidential surprise–pushes them closer to real alternatives. The capital is flowing, the market signals are there, and the energy among European cloud upstarts is palpable.
As the market churns, European CIOs, CTOs, and cloud architects have an unenviable task: Navigating the transition with their eyes wide open, their migration plans on high alert, and their lawyers on speed dial. The collateral damage of an ill-timed executive order could ricochet through entire digital ecosystems.
But the clocks are ticking. Trust, once lost, is hard to regain; and technical inertia has a habit of yielding to necessity. The old logic of “the cloud is just someone else’s computer” feels suddenly quaint in an era where “someone else” might decide to pull the plug, hike the bill, or open the back door.
To those watching the cloud, the powder keg is set. One thing is certain: In the new European cloudscape, “Don’t be evil” sounds less like a guarantee and more like an opening line for cross-examination. European customers are eyeing the exits, and this time, they might just take them.
Source: theregister.com Europe's cloud customers eyeing exit from US hyperscalers
The Great European Cloud Quandary
Europe’s relationship with US hyperscalers – those cloud behemoths known affectionately (and sometimes acidly) as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform – has always been a little complicated. They arrived with promise: affordability, scale, global reach, and a sticker price hard for any regional challenger to match. It was the ultimate cloud importer’s dream: limitless capacity, button-click deployment, and a heaping helping of Silicon Valley bravado.But 2024 has thrown several digital spanners in the works. It’s no longer possible to stroll the length of a tech conference in Paris or Berlin without bumping into a nervous systems architect, clutching a double espresso and doomscrolling for news out of Washington. At April’s KubeCon Europe, the headlines weren’t about the performance of Kubernetes clusters or the latest AI darling. No, the talk of the town was sovereignty, uncertainty, and whispers of a mass exodus from the US cloud motherships.
The Spark Behind the Cloud Exodus
Let’s set the stage. For years, European organizations – from nimble fintech startups in Vilnius to staid public agencies in Bavaria – have filled their digital trunks with the wares of US hyperscalers. The logic was ironclad: why build your own ill-tempered servers when you could rent the best tech on earth?But late-2023 and early-2024 saw a series of events that rattled this relationship. The world watched the US administration seesaw on tariffs, the news flickered with executive order drama, and the idea of “digital sovereignty” – once a niche concern for privacy geeks – went utterly mainstream.
“It’s amazing how fast the change has been,” confessed Mark Boost, CEO of UK-based cloud provider CIVO, at KubeCon EU. Boost isn’t just a cloud vendor; he’s a digital sovereignty evangelist and hyperscaler skeptic extraordinaire. Even so, he admitted being surprised by the sheer speed at which organizations began exploring cloud alternatives.
He isn’t alone. Nextcloud, a German collaboration software powerhouse, has seen a surge in customer interest. CEO Frank Karlitschek pinpoints a trio of anxieties fueling the frenzy: unpredictability from the US government (Will services be yanked at a political whim?), economic uncertainty (Are tariffs about to add choppy cost surges?), and – perhaps most arresting – fears of espionage and data exploitation.
“It’s a realistic fear nowadays,” Karlitschek says, referencing the steady drumbeat of stories about Muskian data dives and executive overreach. Only months ago, such anxieties might have been dismissed as the stuff of late-night Reddit threads. Now, they are strategic talking points in executive suites from Helsinki to Madrid.
Of Tariffs, Trump, and the Trust Deficit
The larger story isn’t just about the executive orders of one US president. It’s about a profound trust deficit that has steadily widened between Europe’s business IT leaders and Silicon Valley’s finest. The tariffs may have made headlines, but they merely stoked the embers of deeper fears: How easy would it be for a foreign government to effectively “turn off” crucial business systems residing on their shores? And, even more pressing: Could sensitive corporate or citizen information be swept up in a transatlantic dragnet of shifting alliances and legal interpretations?Across the continent, tales abound: EU officials issued burner phones and “clean” laptops for US trips, national IT teams scheduling meetings about “data repatriation,” and procurement teams quietly asking vendors how quickly they can switch horses if the cloud winds change.
European Vendors Step Into the Spotlight
Naturally, European cloud vendors are barely able to keep up with the influx of anxious new prospects. Nextcloud claims interest in its suite has tripled in recent months. CIVO and smaller regional players – from OVHcloud in France to Hetzner in Germany – report similar stories.But turning interest into hard migration isn’t just about flipping a digital switch. Frank Karlitschek of Nextcloud warns that migration from big US hyperscalers is typically a marathon, not a sprint – measured in months or, more realistically, years.
"Organizations that are really threatened" by the current US regime, however, aren’t hanging about. They’re inquiring about emergency exits, replatforming strategies, and piecing together what an “all-European” infrastructure might look like – at speed.
It’s no small feat. The titans of the cloud – AWS, Microsoft, and Google – control some 70 percent of the European market. The umbilical cord, tightly wound after a decade of digital convergence, is hard to snip.
False Dawn or Tectonic Shift?
So is this another “boy who cried monopoly” moment, or have we truly reached a threshold where the Big Three’s dominance is in jeopardy?Jonathan Bryce, CEO of the Open Infrastructure Foundation, senses a sea change. The conversation about sovereignty and alternatives was always present, a low rumble under the surface. But lately, says Bryce, that background noise has become a full-blown roar. And with every fresh geopolitical shock – Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware, soaring licensing costs, the saga of foreign executive orders – new waves of customers start asking the big, uncomfortable questions.
“Where is my data, really? Who can access it? How fast could it be cut off – by regulator, by executive order, or by some new wave of transatlantic animus?”
Even those with a vested interest in the status quo are having second thoughts. Vultr, the plucky New Jersey-based hyperscaler with a growing European presence, reports surging demand for “sovereign infrastructure.” Their CMO, Kevin Cochrane, doesn’t mince words: Governments and enterprises now see business risk in relying on an oligopoly controlling the infrastructure on which their very digital existence depends.
The net result is a nervous, jittery market, with IT strategists eyeing the exits even as they acknowledge just how hard moving out would be.
The Data Sovereignty Drive
All this unrest has coalesced under the buzzword banner of “digital sovereignty.” Once the sole obsession of French ministers and GDPR lawyers, sovereignty is now the new table stakes for anyone provisioning systems in Europe.What’s behind the shift? Three forces converge:
1. Legal Uncertainty: Thanks to the Schrems II ruling, the transatlantic legal musical chairs over data transfer continues. At any moment, a cross-border court case could invalidate the instruments by which European companies share data with US firms.
2. Political Volatility: What Washington giveth, Washington can (and will) taketh away. Post-2024, there’s an undeniable risk that a change in US administration could transform cloud service terms overnight, either through tariffs, new surveillance statutes, or executive fiat.
3. Cultural Reassessment: The old story of digital inevitability – “The US will always be ahead, resistance is futile!” – has lost its shine. As Jonathan Bryce put it, the technology now exists, and with the right motivation, Europe could close the gap.
Can Europe Compete?
Skeptics abound. “How are European cloud players ever going to match AWS’s innovation flywheel, their economies of scale, or the convenience of GCP’s global fabric?” ask the naysayers.But to dismiss Europe’s own up-and-comers is to overlook the force of necessity. In the wake of Broadcom’s VMware price shocks, entire IT teams have scrambled for alternatives. The Open Infrastructure Foundation has picked up defectors, as have regional vendors promising – loudly and legally – to keep data both physically and judicially rooted in Europe.
Perhaps more importantly, the very curve of innovation could shift. In a world where “location of your data” is a board-level concern, attributes like transparency, local compliance, and the avoidance of geopolitically-triggered outages become competitive differentiators.
The Vendor Lock-In Dilemma
No analysis would be complete without acknowledging the toughest obstacle of all: lock-in. For organizations embedded deep within the clouds of Seattle, Redmond, or Mountain View, escape can feel like planning an elaborate prison break.It’s not just about moving gigabytes. Workflows, DevOps pipelines, and proprietary APIs have been stitched together over many years. Talent has been hired not for generic skills, but for expertise in specific hyperscaler services.
Nextcloud’s Karlitschek is utterly pragmatic. Unless your organization is “really threatened,” migration is best done stepwise, with months of planning and testing. Yet every fresh jolt – be it tariffs, regulatory action, or new surveillance scandals – tips another cohort of fence-sitters toward serious action.
Regulatory Rumblings and Antitrust Angst
There’s an awkward, unspoken question in all of this: Might the mere whiff of European customers leaving for alternatives help the cloud giants dodge the crosshairs of the EU’s antitrust regulators?Not so fast, says CIVO’s Boost. While the competitive landscape is evolving, the Big Three’s grasp remains formidable. Monopolies aren’t dismantled by a couple of high-profile defections. Still, the dynamic has changed. Regulators are watching – wary, finger poised over the penalty button.
Shifting Sands and Future Roads
If you’re expecting a parade of British government departments or German insurance giants to hold triumphal press conferences as they rip up their cloud contracts, don’t hold your breath. The playbook remains “quietly evaluate, keep options open.”Yet beneath the surface, movement is afoot. For now, much of it is confidential – strategy documents marked “Eyes Only,” procurement teams hunting for European partners, and more organizations than ever viewing “cloud repatriation” not as a retrograde step, but a hedge against chaos.
And old certainties are fading fast. “No way other countries catch up to the US hyperscalers?” Jonathan Bryce isn’t buying it. Technical capacity is not the issue, he asserts. Motivation is. And suddenly, motivation is everywhere.
The Road Ahead: Choices Multiply, Certainty Declines
Ultimately, what we’re witnessing isn’t just a market readjustment, but a once-in-a-generation reckoning. The European cloud conversation has shifted from “what do we save by going hyperscale US” to “what do we risk by staying?” That’s a mental model inversion. It will reshape procurement, regulation, and boardroom debates for the foreseeable future.For now, most European enterprises remain tethered to the Big Three, their cloud architectures rooted deep in US innovation soil. But each new flare–tariff scuffle, legal uncertainty, presidential surprise–pushes them closer to real alternatives. The capital is flowing, the market signals are there, and the energy among European cloud upstarts is palpable.
As the market churns, European CIOs, CTOs, and cloud architects have an unenviable task: Navigating the transition with their eyes wide open, their migration plans on high alert, and their lawyers on speed dial. The collateral damage of an ill-timed executive order could ricochet through entire digital ecosystems.
Whither the European Cloud?
Is it time to declare a new digital sovereignty doctrine from Dublin to Athens? Not quite – at least, not yet. The transformation from avowed cloud cosmopolitan to sovereignty hawk is a journey, not just a press release.But the clocks are ticking. Trust, once lost, is hard to regain; and technical inertia has a habit of yielding to necessity. The old logic of “the cloud is just someone else’s computer” feels suddenly quaint in an era where “someone else” might decide to pull the plug, hike the bill, or open the back door.
To those watching the cloud, the powder keg is set. One thing is certain: In the new European cloudscape, “Don’t be evil” sounds less like a guarantee and more like an opening line for cross-examination. European customers are eyeing the exits, and this time, they might just take them.
Source: theregister.com Europe's cloud customers eyeing exit from US hyperscalers
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