Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon’s cloud computing division, has confirmed additional details about its European “sovereign cloud” designed to enable greater data residency across the region.
The company said the first AWS sovereign cloud region will be in the German state of Brandenburg and will be operational by the end of 2025. AWS plans to invest 7.8 billion euros ($8.5 billion) in the facility by 2040, he added.
The announcement comes just in time for the AWS Berlin Summit taking place in the German capital today and tomorrow, and comes about seven months after AWS first revealed its plans for the sovereign cloud.
highly regulated
AWS has long provided localized data storage and processing in Europe, but public sector agencies and organizations operating in certain highly regulated industries have taken longer to transition to the public cloud due to data (mis)management issues. . No matter what policies and promises the hyperscalers have, data is ultimately under the control of the American tech giants. This gives AWS European Sovereign Cloud much stronger data controls, allowing all eligible customers to keep all metadata within the EU. And AWS employees outside the EU cannot access anything contained within the EU.
This means that the sovereign cloud is “physically and logically separate” from all other AWS Regions.
AWS originally distanced itself from the “sovereign cloud” concept. Amazon Chief Security Officer Stephen Schmidt went so far as to call Sovereign Cloud “more of a marketing term than anything else.” However, in late 2022, AWS announced its ‘Digital Sovereignty Pledge’, solidifying its data control commitments.
This tactical change is partly due to increased regulatory pressure, but also because large cloud competitors have been ramping up their sovereign cloud push, including Microsoft, Google and even Oracle, which launched sovereign cloud for EU customers last June. . .
Part of the multibillion-dollar investment will include creating new roles to support Europe’s sovereign cloud, including software engineers, systems developers and solutions architects, which it touts will “support an average of 2,800 full-time jobs in Europe”. We operate ‘local German companies’ every year through supply chains in fields such as construction, facility maintenance, and telecommunications.
