AWS, which wants to improve data security and residency throughout the EU, announced today that it will be launching its European “sovereign cloud.”
The first area to house the cloud servers is Bradenburg, Germany, and they are scheduled to go online by the end of 2025. Until 2040, AWS will invest €7.8 billion.
The IT giant claims that the European Sovereign Cloud will function independently from other cloud regions and have all of its infrastructure located within the EU. Access to the system will be restricted to AWS personnel residing in the EU and the bloc.
The service is specifically made for clients in the public sector and for private businesses that operate in highly regulated sectors, where there are stricter restrictions for data residency and autonomy.
Because of this, cloud customers can retain all of their data and metadata inside the European Union.
By 2040, AWS projects that its investment would boost Germany’s GDP by €17.2 billion and sustain 2,800 full-time employment annually in the supply chain for data centers.
AWS first promised to work on the service in 2022, while initially opposing the idea of a sovereign cloud due to growing regulatory pressure and more competition.
AWS’s cloud services, together with those of Google and Microsoft, are the market leaders in Europe. However, growing EU worries about how foreign corporations handle and store data have led to a redesigned data policy and heightened efforts to achieve digital sovereignty.
Google and Microsoft, on the other hand, have already introduced their own solutions for sovereign clouds.