Why is building a European hyperscaler unrealistic

Talking about a shockwave is no exaggeration. Since the US president took office in early 2025, the realization – which had always been there in the background – has now truly sunk in. “It’s as if the CIO has suddenly woken up,” says Filip Marchal. “As if we didn’t fully realize back then just how dependent we are on largely non-European players for our hard- and software.” More than 70% of the cloud computing we do in Europe is hosted by US providers. “And, of course, they are bound by US law.”

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Filip Marchal, Cloud Product & Solution Lead at Proximus NXT.

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Local cloud

The business world views that as a risk today. “Because what if we suddenly lose access to Azure or AWS? In principle, that could very well happen, and Europe has few solutions of its own to counter it. SAP and ASML are leaders in their respective fields, but that's about it.” Even if we wanted to stop relying on American suppliers, we wouldn't be able to do so right away. “That’s not actually necessary,” says Marchal. “But to reduce dependency, it might be a good idea not to rely solely on a single hyperscaler, but to work with multiple providers.”

Meanwhile, Gartner reportsNew window that 61% of CIOs in western Europe are considering partnering with local cloud providers. Notably, more than half of CIOs expect to comply with restrictions on the use of US cloud services. “The topic is on the agenda anyway. At Proximus NXT, too, we’re seeing companies that really want to move away from their US cloud provider. But they expect the alternative solution to provide the same level of service and innovation that they currently receive from that hyperscaler. That’s still quite a challenge, though.”

Hyperscaler-native

It turns out that leaving a hyperscaler’s cloud isn’t nearly as easy as it seems. At least not for everyone. “Cloud-native companies were able to fully reap the benefits of the cloud from the very start – unhindered by legacy systems,” says Filip Marchal. “They were also the first to launch IaaS and PaaS, and the hyperscalers have built their entire portfolio around those services.” As a result, these cloud-native companies are very dependent on that ecosystem. It's very difficult to remove these data from the cloud."

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Filip Marchal, Cloud Product & Solution Lead at Proximus NXT.

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Does this present an opportunity for European cloud providers, such as the French company OVHcloud? “Partly, yes. A European provider like that could handle the infrastructure aspect. But what about the rest? Those who fully embraced the cloud back then are now realizing that the correct term isn’t cloud-native, it's hyperscaler-native.” The consensus is that containers offer a solution. You can run them in any cloud and even easily move them between clouds – at least in theory.

“It reminds me of Java,” Marchal observes. “That was supposedly portable too, until you tried it.”

What these findings make particularly clear is that the challenge is not merely technological. The discussion is also forcing integrators to rethink their role.

In search of resilience

“I don’t really believe in moving a container image from one cloud to another just like that.” Containers are often closely linked to underlying libraries, which severely limits their portability. So is the only option to move everything out of the cloud and run our own on-premise infrastructure? Unfortunately, yes. According to Marchal, that seems like a logical approach, but it’s actually a fallacy. “You shouldn’t focus on the cloud itself, but on what you want to achieve. Resilience – that's what it's all about."

You shouldn't really be asking questions about the cloud, but about your own company. “What is the minimum viable company you’re aiming for? What risks do you want to eliminate by switching to a local cloud? And then: is that technically feasible, or will you have to redevelop some of it locally after all? Those are the questions that matter." It’s reminiscent of the rise of the cloud, when companies opted for a quick lift and shift, intending to modernize the solutions later.

The sovereignty paradox

“Now companies are thinking: we want to get out of the cloud as soon as possible. We're going with ‘lift and repatriate’, and we'll see what happens after that." But, according to Marchal, that’s not the right approach. “You need to conduct the risk assessment. What risks are you taking by working with a hyperscaler today? What risks are you willing to accept in this regard, and how much are you willing to spend to eliminate the unacceptable risks? That's what it's all about."

Those who were among the first to go fully cloud-native back then are now finding it hardest to answer these questions. “That’s the sovereignty paradox. Those who chose the cloud for its flexibility are now the most stuck."

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Filip Marchal, Cloud Product & Solution Lead at Proximus NXT.

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The cloud story, though, isn't black and white. Just as it’s not necessarily a matter of cloud versus on-premise, we shouldn’t think in terms of the US or China versus Europe either. “If we want a sovereign solution, should we build a European hyperscaler modeled after the American one? That's just fantasy. Companies like Microsoft and Amazon have been developing their solutions for twenty-five years. You’ll never catch up.” But things are starting to move. Growth among hyperscalers is now expected to slow down.

More control

That will be more of an advantage for private cloud than for on-premise solutions. But even so, that's beside the point. “The quest for sovereignty is not about competing with American hyperscalers, but rather about setting new rules for sensitive data and workloads. Instead of chasing after a European hyperscaler, we will be better off building a sovereign control plane: a layer that we put on top of existing offerings to create a sovereign digital infrastructure."

It's a way to build in more control. “This way, we retain the capabilities that hyperscalers offer us – which is fortunate, because they’re very good at what they do – while, at the same time, gaining more control over where each workload runs and how we protect our data.” This level of control is also obtainable in various gradations, all the way up to solutions such as Clarence the disconnected sovereign cloud from Proximus NXT and LuxConnect. Clarence is based on Google technology, but is also completely air-gapped.

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Filip Marchal, Cloud Product & Solution Lead at Proximus NXT.

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The fact is that today, we can’t do without the hyperscalers. In terms of scale and innovation, there is currently no alternative. “The challenge is to gain more control,” says Marchal. The legislators may be helping out in this regard. “The EU Data Act clearly states that it must be possible to transfer data from one cloud to another. Starting in 2027, cloud providers will no longer be allowed to charge for this."

The intention is for the data transfer to be fully automated. “Just like how you keep your phone number when you switch providers today. That alone would be a nice improvement.”

The value of open source

Does Europe have absolutely no say in the face of the dominance of the American tech giants? In fact, it does: Europe’s strategic weapon is open source. It is also the only software model that Europe really controls. Much of Europe's digital infrastructure relies on open source. But it’s a bit of a mixed bag today. “It’s the communities that help develop and innovate within open source,” explains Marchal.

These are company employees: so, in essence, it’s the companies that bear the costs here, but there’s also an army of volunteers who enjoy developing software in their spare time because they want to solve their own specific use cases.

Companies that lack in-house expertise can turn to integrators for open-source support. “While companies contribute to open source for free, integrators derive economic value from it. Licenses for commercial software are often complicated and expensive, which makes open source an attractive option. But the fact that one company contributes to open source while another shares in the benefits for free doesn't always sit well. Maybe we should have the courage to question that."

Ready for the exit

The cloud we want in Europe is both hybrid and sovereign. Sensitive data and workloads are housed in an environment where sovereignty, compliance, and operational control are guaranteed. In practice, this often means infrastructure located within the EU. Workloads that require massive scale – such as training AI models – will remain the domain of US hyperscalers for the time being. But that in itself is not a problem, as long as there are strong contractual and technical guardrails in place.

“At the same time, you need to make sure you’re always ready for an exit,” says Marchal. “With older solutions, that’s often not possible overnight. But it is an extra precaution you can incorporate into any new initiative. It’s one of the key features of platform engineering principles. You then decide where to place each workload: in which type of cloud and with which provider. Of course, you perform that analysis before you begin the deployment, so that it will be easier to deploy the workload to other environments later on."

Sovereign by design

Ultimately, this will lead us to intent-driven platforms. “The system architect will then decide what to build, but it will be AI that handles the rest of the development, provides the necessary infrastructure, and so on. AI will thus solve the problem of portability.” At the same time, this is achieved through an approach that ensures sovereignty by design. “This is precisely the role Proximus NXT aims to play in this process,” says Marchal.

“We were the first to offer sovereign versions of the public cloud. We present the thing objectively, acting as a sovereign architect to find the right solution for every company – with or without a hyperscaler."