Could a European cloud solve GDPR hurdles?

Cloud providers based and operated in the EU could certainly contribute to solving problems related to data transfer and responsibility for stored data.

The servers of US tech giants located in the EU fall under US jurisdiction regardless of their physical location. In certain situations, US companies may be obliged to share this data with the US government. We also need to trust that they are complying with their security standards. There is a lot here that is problematic or simply unacceptable from a data protection perspective in the EU.

A hosting system located and operated in the EU would be inaccessible to the US and would guarantee full data sovereignty. This would be essential for certain sectors or activities, such as the public sector, the financial sector or healthcare, which work with particularly sensitive data.

Would a European cloud provide an economic advantage over the USA?

Competition is always good, and a local hosting provider that fully complies with EU regulations could challenge the status quo, especially in some industries.

I can also imagine that several providers host their solutions in EU clouds so that their services are more compliant with EU regulations.

Is such an EU-based cloud infrastructure feasible?

There are already a number of hosting providers based and operating in the EU, but the real challenge is scale. Only cloud providers of comparable size and reach could successfully compete with big tech from the US and meet the very high storage needs of large enterprises.

Europe’s largest economies could try to do this alone, but it should rather be a joint effort that pools the strengths and resources of EU member states.

This also raises the question of the profitability of such an undertaking. Nevertheless, the EU cloud should be seen as a strategic investment that helps to protect the most important data of EU citizens from exploitation and manipulation.