Cloud, data and AI architecture
Secure, compliant cloud infrastructure designed for European organizations.
European cloud sovereignty ensures that data and services remain under the control of European
entities, hosted within the EU, subject to European law, and protected from foreign access.
This is essential for trust, compliance, and digital autonomy.
And this also might prove to be essential for a sustainable business model for European organizations.
Neural Layer evaluates cloud providers based on their alignment with the European cloud sovereignty objectives.
Approach
The EU created a framework for digital sovereignty to ensure that European data and services
remain under the control of European entities, hosted within the EU, subject to European law,
and protected from foreign access. An overview can be found
at Cloud
Sovereignty Framework.
Neural Layer scores the providers based on their alignment with these European cloud sovereignty
objectives and your use cases. After each objective has been evaluated, a weighting is applied to
calculate an overall score for each provider,
which can be used to compare and select the most suitable cloud solution for your needs.
European cloud sovereignty defines a set of objectives that cloud providers must meet to be considered sovereign. Providers that meet these objectives can offer solutions that align with the needs of European organizations seeking to maintain sovereignty over their digital assets.
| Objective | Description |
|---|---|
| Strategic Sovereignty | Measures how strongly a company is aligned with EU ownership, control, and strategic interests. |
| Legal & Jurisdictional Sovereignty | Evaluates how well services are protected under EU laws from foreign legal influence. |
| Data & AI Sovereignty | Focuses on keeping data and AI services secure, controlled, and processed within the EU. |
| Operational Sovereignty | Measures how independently EU organizations can operate and support the technology. |
| Supply Chain Sovereignty | Evaluates how much the technology supply chain depends on EU-controlled resources and processes. |
| Technology Sovereignty | Measures openness, transparency, and freedom from dependency on foreign proprietary technology. |
| Security & Compliance Sovereignty | Assesses whether security, compliance, and resilience are managed within the EU. |
| Environmental Sustainability | Evaluates long-term sustainability of cloud services in energy and resource usage within the EU. |
For an assessment specific to your use cases and requirements, please contact us. If you want to calculate an indicative score for a specific provider, you can try our free Score Calculator
The table provides indicative scores for various cloud providers based on their alignment with the European cloud sovereignty objectives. These scores are meant to give a general sense of how well each provider meets the criteria, but actual suitability may vary based on specific use cases and requirements.
| Provider | Indicative Score |
|---|---|
| OVHcloud / Scaleway / StackIT | 70–85% |
| Hetzner | 60–80% |
| Azure Sovereign Cloud | 40–60% |
| AWS Sovereign Cloud | 35–60% |
| Standard AWS/Azure/GCP EU regions | 20–40% |
Challenges
Achieving full cloud sovereignty in the EU is complex and involves navigating a range of challenges across the supply chain, strategic investments, and operational capabilities. Providers must address these challenges to meet the sovereignty objectives and provide solutions that align with the needs of European organizations.
EU operated cloud providers often rely on hardware, software, and services from non-EU suppliers, creating potential vulnerabilities and dependencies that can undermine sovereignty goals. This is not unique to EU providers, but it is a significant challenge for achieving full sovereignty in the cloud.
Providers like AWS and Azure have significant investments in the EU and are committed to expanding their presence, but they are still foreign companies subject to US jurisdiction and influence. This creates a tension between their strategic investments in the EU and the legal and operational realities of being non-EU entities, which can limit their ability to fully meet the strategic sovereignty objective.
Getting skilled staff, ensuring continuity of operations, and maintaining resilience against external dependencies are critical for operational sovereignty. EU providers may face challenges in building the necessary ecosystem to support these needs independently of foreign control.