Germany and France on Thursday launched a challenge to arrange a European cloud computing platform GAIA-X that they hope will improve European financial sovereignty within the wake of the coronavirus disaster and break the continent’s dependence on US and Chinese language firms.
The platform, entitled GAIA-X, is supposed to be up and working — no less than in prototype type — originally of subsequent yr and be open to customers from exterior Europe that commit to stick to European requirements. German Financial system Peter Altmaier stated that the purpose is “nothing lower than a European moonshot in digital coverage.”
Germany and France will arrange a non-profit affiliation to coordinate and arrange the info infrastructure, Altmaier stated. Conceived final yr and initially introduced in October, GAIA-X follows on the heels of an present push by the European Union’s two greatest economies to arrange a automobile battery consortium aimed toward catching up with Asian rivals.
The cloud computing challenge “couldn’t have been extra well timed” as Europe tries to dig itself out of a deep recession attributable to the coronavirus disaster, French Financial system Minister Bruno Le Maire stated.
“With the COVID disaster, firms massively shifted to teleworking. This makes the necessity for (a) safe and European cloud answer all of the extra pressing,” Le Maire instructed a information convention by video hyperlink from Paris.
“The disaster additionally confirmed that the large tech firms are the winners … the European digital house must be protected,” he added, pledging that the brand new platform “will guarantee the applying of coverage guidelines primarily based on EU values and requirements.”
“We’re not China, we’re not the USA — we’re European international locations with our personal values and our personal financial pursuits that we need to defend,” Le Maire stated. He confused the significance of “interoperability,” permitting firms to change simply to the brand new system with out shedding any information.
The 2 ministers stated the challenge has introduced collectively 22 firms in France and Germany, together with Dassault Systemes, Orange, Siemens, SAP, Robert Bosch, and Deutsche Telekom. They did not give monetary particulars. Le Maire known as on “all different European firms and international locations” to affix the initiative.
Past that, “the thought is that we invite firms the world over offering their cloud companies in accordance with European requirements and guidelines,” Altmaier stated. “Everybody who desires to have the label of GAIA-X must respect and to fulfill a number of units of guidelines,” together with on interoperability and information migration.
He stated that the challenge’s success “might be essential for Germany, for France and for Europe so far as our financial energy, our competitivity and our sovereignty are involved.”
