European countries could be planning to construct its own multi-national cloud computing network to reduce reliance on US-built services.
France and Germany are among several nations to have backed the “moonshot” plans, known as Gaia-X, which would see a new “European data ecosystem” built across the continent.
This would help to lessen the need to rely on American technology giants for technology infrastructure, particularly the likes of Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services.
Gaia-X
Gaia-X is hoped to launch next year, with 22 French and German companies have already signed up to back the non-proft project, including big names such as Siemens, SAP, Atos, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Dassault Systemes, and Robert Bosch.
It’s hoped that Gaia-X could help form consistent standards concerning how data is stored and processed on servers located in the European Union, which need to comply with data privacy regulations such as GDPR.
Speaking at an event in Berlin earlier this week, French economic minister Bruno Le Maire said that, “the European digital space has to be protected.”
“We are not China, we are not the United States – we are European countries with our own values and our own economic interests that we want to defend.”
“The (Covid-19) crisis has shown that giant tech companies are the winners…(Gaia-X) will ensure the application of policy rules based on EU values and standards.”
Gaia-X had first been announced last October, but this week marked the formation of a legal non-profit entity in Belgium to officially establish the project.
