As Brussels-Washington tensions grow, a subtle but seismic change is underway in the cloud strategy of European companies. Behind the AI hype and shiny tech demos at this year’s Gitex Berlin trade show, another conversation bubbled through the trade show halls — one of sovereignty, control, and increasing skepticism of American cloud dominance.
The United States’ CLOUD Act of 2018 casts a very long shadow in that debate. US authorities can compel domestic tech companies to turn over user information, wherever in the world it is. To most EU companies, that reality clashes squarely with GDPR obligations, causing fears about data sovereignty alongside legal issues.
While no courtroom has yet staged a direct showdown between CLOUD and GDPR, the theoretical conflict is real enough to influence infrastructure decisions. Increasingly, European companies are exploring alternatives that allow them to house their data on infrastructure entirely outside U.S. legal reach.
At Gitex, there was a clear undercurrent of change in the air. Cloud-Network.ai presented its data migration solutions, explicitly targeting organizations looking to move away from U.S.-centric cloud providers. Meanwhile, regional firms like Ionos and NextCloud attracted significant attention—not only for their robust technical offerings, but also for what they represent: a growing push for digital sovereignty in Europe. The message was pretty clear—Europe’s tech scene is determined to regain control over its data infrastructure.
This isn’t just about legal safety. It’s also a reaction to what some see as a shift in American tech culture — a growing shareholder-first ethos, regulatory unpredictability, and the politicization of digital infrastructure under the current U.S. administration. For many across the Atlantic, that environment feels less like a business partner and more like a risk.
People don’t associate Europe with speed when it comes to policy or innovation. But Gitex showed something quietly radical: a continent starting to pivot, driven by the pragmatic realization that control over data — and who can access it — has become not just a technical concern, but a geopolitical necessity.
