AWS exits CISPE board as articles of association undergo changes

The Amazon subsidiary Amazon Web Services (AWS) has left the board of the trade association Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe (CISPE). Following a change in the articles of association, only European companies may now hold a board seat in the organization. Cloud providers based outside Europe with an annual turnover of more than 10 billion euros can join the association as supporting members without voting rights. "Our new structure enables us to represent the entire industry and at the same time protect the interests of Europeans," says CISPE President Jacqueline van de Werken.

CISPE responds to desire for digital sovereignty

In addition to the amendment to the articles of association, CISPE has set up a committee for sovereignty and strategic autonomy. This is the association's response to the desire for digital independence. Against the backdrop of geopolitical conflicts and economic dependencies, there is an increasing demand for competitive, domestic cloud infrastructures and AI applications among European cloud users, government authorities and companies. With these changes, CISPE sees itself as the largest, exclusively European-focused trade association for cloud service providers.

CISPE also decided on five board seats. Alexander Windbichler, CEO of Austrian cloud service provider Anexia, and Jake Madders, founder and CEO of UK-based Hyve Managed Hosting, were elected for the first time for a three-year term of office. The election confirmed Lorenzo Chirlatti (Register, Italy), David Chassan (Outscale, France) and Jacqueline van de Werken (Leaseweb, Netherlands) in office. With her re-election, she also retains the chairmanship of the Executive Board.

Amazon remains a CISPE member

In addition to AWS, representatives of the cloud providers Upcloud from Finland and Gigas from Spain did not stand for re-election. "We are proud of our contributions to the achievements and growth of CISPE," Stephanie Ducalbe, former CISPE board member for AWS, told The Register. "As a CISPE member, we will continue to champion the cloud industry, support customer choice and improve European competitiveness," she added. Upcloud and Gigas will also remain as members of the association.

Just last month, AWS competitor Microsoft joined the industry associationas a supporting member. AWS is said to have been against the admission of the Redmond-based company, but was outvoted by the other board members. CISPE had previously withdrawn a competition complaint against Microsoft at the EU Commission. This was the association's response to the adjustment of contractual content regarding the costs of Microsoft programs for non-Azure clouds.

Amazon recently announced that it intends to invest around 100 billion US dollars in the expansion of its infrastructure this year. The largest share of this is to be spent on the construction of data centers for artificial intelligence. Locations are also to be established in Germany. In the pilot region of Brandenburg, the US company plans to open the first data center of the sovereign AWS Euro Cloud at the end of the year.

(sfe)