Gartner: Sovereign cloud only possible in USA and China

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According to Gartner, achieving complete technological or digital sovereignty is currently hardly possible outside the USA and China. The reasons for this are the dominance of the large hyperscalers and persistent dependencies in infrastructure, platform services, and supply chains. Gartner VP Analyst Douglas Toombs pointed this out at the “IT Infrastructure, Operations & Cloud Strategies” conference in Sydney.

Geopolitical tensions, regulatory uncertainties, and the strong market position of US cloud providers have recently further fueled the debate about digital sovereignty. Especially in Europe, companies and authorities are looking for ways to reduce their dependence on US hyperscalers and to secure data sovereignty and regulatory control.

More than just the storage location of data

“There are currently no suitable non-U.S. alternatives to the big hyperscalers, except in China, where intellectual property protections are a concern,” Toombs explained, according to the conference highlights published by Gartner. True technological sovereignty is therefore not currently possible outside these two countries.

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Gartner does not just mean where data is physically located. Technological sovereignty also encompasses control over cloud infrastructure, management software, security mechanisms, support processes, and the underlying supply chains. Even locally operated variants of global cloud platforms mostly remained technically and organizationally tied to their providers.

At the same time, Gartner observes a growing demand for control, portability, and digital autonomy. Companies must protect themselves against risks such as regulatory changes, sanctions, security incidents, or failures of individual providers. In Europe, the discussion has for years been dominated by the potential access of US authorities to data of European customers, for example, via the Cloud Act or FISA regulations.

Exit strategies as a blind spot

Gartner views the lack of exit strategies for many cloud customers as particularly critical. Organizations must clearly define the conditions under which they will leave a provider. Those who fail to do so create follow-up problems and put their teams in an almost unsolvable situation, Toombs warned. Concrete triggers, fixed budgets, and realistic timelines are necessary.

A cloud exit is not limited to exporting data. Cloud-native applications, proprietary platform services, and tightly integrated PaaS offerings, in particular, make switching considerably more difficult. According to Gartner, migrations of complex enterprise applications often take several years.

Gartner names Sovereign Cloud, Hybrid, and Multicloud approaches as strategies. In addition, there are concepts such as “Shelter in Place,” where companies consciously remain with their current provider despite known risks, or “Hide in Plain Sight,” where they segment or encrypt sensitive data and workloads more strongly.

US Hyperscalers and European Responses

Meanwhile, the major US providers are actively trying to retain their customers with their offerings for Europe, advertised as sovereign. AWS, for example, is building a “European Sovereign Cloud” with independent EU structures and additional compliance commitments. In parallel, European providers and authorities are driving their initiatives, including projects by Schwarz Digits and collaborations with the BSI for sovereign cloud and security solutions, as well as a joint emergency system of European providers in case of a cloud shutdown.

(fo)