## Airbus Moves to Local Cloud: A Shift Towards Technological Sovereignty
Airbus has decided to relocate its most sensitive applications away from Amazon’s cloud services. The company has signed a multi-year agreement with Scaleway, a French cloud provider owned by Iliad, to host critical systems for its industrial and defense operations. This move underscores a growing trend among European companies and institutions to seek greater technological sovereignty.
### What Has Happened?
Airbus will begin migrating 70 applications from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to Scaleway’s infrastructure. This migration is only a starting point within a larger plan that could ultimately involve up to 900 applications over the next five to six years. The systems being moved include key functionalities related to aircraft design, engineering, industrial production, and corporate management tools such as ERP, manufacturing execution, CRM, and product lifecycle management.
### The Strategy Behind the Move
Catherine Jestin, Airbus’ digital director, stated that the primary goal of this initiative is to ensure that data remains “under European control.” This decision is partly driven by concerns over US laws, such as the Cloud Act, which enables the US government to access data stored on American cloud infrastructures, regardless of where that data is physically located. The ongoing trade and geopolitical tensions between Washington and Europe, especially heightened by past US administrations, have fueled apprehension among European firms regarding US technology companies.
### Evaluating Options
Before selecting Scaleway, Airbus evaluated over 150 technical and legal requirements. A critical concern was the so-called “kill switch,” a scenario where a foreign provider might cut access to services based on the directives of its government. This risk assessment played a significant role in the decision-making process.
Importantly, Scaleway also hosts artificial intelligence models for Mistral, a French startup that partnered with Airbus to develop AI solutions tailored for the aerospace and defense sectors. Jestin noted that utilizing Scaleway’s infrastructure will accelerate Airbus’ AI initiatives.
### Maintaining US Partnerships
Despite this strategic pivot, Airbus will not entirely sever ties with American technology suppliers. The company plans to continue using AWS for its aviation data analysis platform, Skywise, and will maintain partnerships with Microsoft and Google for productivity tools. Jestin emphasized that the company is not rejecting all non-European solutions; instead, decisions will be informed by the criticality of the data involved.
### The Bigger Picture
Airbus’s transition to Scaleway comes at a pivotal time for European digital sovereignty. The European Commission has proposed the Cloud and AI Development Act, which aims to enhance cloud computing and storage capabilities within the EU. Major players like AWS, Microsoft, and Google have been launching their own versions of “sovereign cloud” solutions to retain European clients, although the effectiveness of these efforts has been inconsistent. Notably, a Microsoft executive even confessed under oath in a French court that he could not guarantee complete data sovereignty.
In summary, Airbus’s move reflects a broader trend toward technological autonomy within Europe. As geopolitical tensions evolve and concerns about data security grow, other companies may well follow in Airbus’s footsteps, seeking local solutions that align more closely with regulatory and sovereignty objectives.