What is the European sovereign cloud?

A European sovereign cloud is a cloud-computing environment that keeps all customer data, metadata, workloads and administrative control under exclusive European Union (EU) jurisdiction, operated by EU-based staff and certified against EU rules, so that organisations can comply with the bloc’s demanding privacy, cybersecurity and industrial-policy requirements while still enjoying hyperscale cloud services. 

The idea is driven by Europe’s wider push for digital sovereignty—reducing reliance on non-EU tech infrastructure— and is being realised through a mix of EU policy instruments (GDPR, the proposed Cloud & AI Development Act, the EU-wide “EUCS” security label) and large public-private projects.