AWS opens a European sovereign cloud
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has confirmed plans to launch a European sovereign cloud aimed at improving data locality in the region to address commissioners’ concerns and regulations.
The industry leader, which accounts for about a third of the cloud infrastructure market, announced it would establish its inaugural AWS sovereign cloud region in Brandenburg, Germany.
AWS’s new region, which should be operational by the end of 2025, will receive €7.8 billion in funding by 2040.
First European AWS cloud region in Germany
Furthermore, Amazon believes its new region will add €17.2 billion ($18.6 billion) to the country’s GDP by 2040, creating an average of 2,800 full-time jobs annually.
The announcement of further details coincides with the company’s AWS Berlin Summit and is strategically timed to highlight the importance of AWS’s commitment to the European market, which has seen the introduction of new measures and the launch of several antitrust investigations in recent months .
Max Peterson, Vice President of Sovereign Cloud at AWS, commented: “This investment reinforces our commitment to providing customers with the most advanced set of sovereignty controls, privacy safeguards and security features available in the cloud.”
By launching a European cloud, AWS customers can ensure that their data remains within the EU, and even AWS customers from outside the region no longer have access to data.
This cloud segregation addresses data sovereignty and security concerns across the continent. By creating a physically and logically separated cloud, European data gets an extra layer of protection against possible attacks.
Increasing regulatory pressure and competition from other key industry players have brought Amazon to this point. Microsoft and Google, which together account for a third of the market, have launched their own sovereign cloud initiatives. Oracle has also followed suit.