The pair are creating a public cloud platform in a number of European markets
Deutsche Telekom subsidiary T-Systems has teamed up with French cloud and hosting provider OVHcloud to contribute to the Gaia-X initiative, a data infrastructure collaboration between the European Commission (EC) and a number of countries, by creating a public cloud platform in Germany, France and other European markets.
In a joint statement, Deutsche Telekom’s IT services arm division T-Systems and OVHcloud commented, “This new offering will address the specific needs of the public sector, as well as essential infrastructure operators and companies of all sizes operating in strategic or sensitive areas of public interest.”
The partnership will utilize Deutsche Telekom’s data centers and its public sector expertise for the partnership, while OVHcloud will leverage its PCI platform to better align with T-Systems customers and partners.
Reuters reported that the partnership has been “deemed of strategic importance” and has the potential to create a European alternative to Amazon, Microsoft and Google in cloud computing. Due to the number of people still working and studying from home around the world, the cloud computing market and the businesses is expected to grow by 6.3% in 2020 to $257.9 billion, according to research firm Gartner.
“Deutsche Telekom is a strong supporter of a sovereign European Cloud,” said Frank Strecker, SVP global cloud computing and big data at Deutsche Telekom.
“However,” he continued, “to make a sovereign European cloud infrastructure successful we need to scale fast. And we need the support of the public sector.”
In February, the EC made its aim to move towards a Europe-centric cloud clear when it set out plans to invest €2 billion in order to “restore technological sovereignty.”
French president Emmanuel Macron said in a conference that took place after the Deutsche Telekom-OVHcloud announcement that Europe has “lost” the worldwide battle for cloud computing dominance to the U.S. giants who, collectively, have a market share of around 60%.
However, he went on to say that Europe should continue fighting, adding, “If we want our ecosystem to be sustainable, it has to be sovereign.”
