https://www.wired.com/story/trump-us-cloud-services-europe/
"The global backlash against the second Donald Trump administration keeps on
growing. Canadians have boycotted US-made products, anti–Elon Musk posters have
appeared across London amid widespread Tesla protests, and European officials
have drastically increased military spending as US support for Ukraine falters.
Dominant US tech services may be the next focus.
There are early signs that some European companies and governments are souring
on their use of American cloud services provided by the three so-called
hyperscalers. Between them, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Amazon Web
Services (AWS) host vast swathes of the internet and keep thousands of
businesses running. However, some organizations appear to be reconsidering
their use of these companies’ cloud services—including servers, storage, and
databases—citing uncertainties around privacy and data access fears under the
Trump administration.
“There’s a huge appetite in Europe to de-risk or decouple the over-dependence
on US tech companies, because there is a concern that they could be weaponized
against European interests,” says Marietje Schaake, a nonresident fellow at
Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center and a former, decade-long member of the European
Parliament.
The moves may already be underway. On March 18, politicians in the Netherlands
House of Representatives passed eight motions asking the government to reduce
reliance on US tech companies and move to European alternatives. Days before,
more than 100 organizations signed an open letter to European officials calling
for the continent to become “more technologically independent” and saying the
status quo creates “security and reliability risks.”
Two European-based cloud service companies, Exoscale and Elastx, tell
WIRED
they have seen an uptick in potential customers looking to abandon US cloud
providers over the last two weeks—with some already starting to make the jump.
Multiple technology advisers say they are having widespread discussions about
what it would take to uproot services, data, and systems.
“We have more demand from across Europe,” says Mathias Nöbauer, the CEO of
Swiss-based hosting provider Exoscale, adding there has been an increase in new
customers seeking to move away from cloud giants. “Some customers were very
explicit,” Nöbauer says. “Especially customers from Denmark being very explicit
that they want to move away from US hyperscalers because of the US
administration and what they said about Greenland.”
“It's a big worry about the uncertainty around everything. And from the
Europeans’ perspective—that the US is maybe not on the same team as us any
longer,” says Joakim Öhman, the CEO of Swedish cloud provider Elastx. “Those
are the drivers that bring people or organizations to look at alternatives.”"
Via Frederick Wilson II.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
