Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon’s cloud computing division, is forming a brand new mother or father firm and three subsidiaries in Germany as a part of a sovereign cloud the corporate is launching within the European Union.
AWS VP Kathrin Renz will function managing director of AWS’ German company mother or father, which can even be led by EU-based “authorities safety and privateness official[s],” in keeping with Amazon. The German firm will oversee the aforementioned new sovereign cloud, the AWS European Sovereign Cloud, which is scheduled to launch by the top of 2025.
“Everything wanted to function the AWS European Sovereign Cloud is within the EU,” wrote AWS in a weblog put up. “In addition to impartial infrastructure, there will probably be zero operational management exterior of EU borders; solely AWS staff, residing within the EU, will management day-to-day operations, together with entry to knowledge facilities, technical help, and customer support for the AWS European Sovereign Cloud.”
A rising variety of tech giants and cloud suppliers, together with Amazon rivals Microsoft and Google, supply European sovereign cloud, or knowledge residency, packages. These assist prospects adjust to European native privateness and knowledge safety legal guidelines just like the GDPR and Germany’s Federal Data Protection Act.
AWS introduced in May 2024 that it might make investments €7.8 billion (roughly $8.8 billion) to construct the AWS European Sovereign Cloud in Germany by 2040, with the primary cloud “area” to go dwell within the State of Brandenburg.
The AWS European Sovereign Cloud will function infrastructure situated inside the EU and operated independently from AWS’ present cloud computing areas, in keeping with Amazon. Customers utilizing will probably be in a position to hold their knowledge and metadata — together with the configurations they use to run AWS — within the EU to adjust to relevant legal guidelines and laws, Amazon says.
In addition to the brand new company presence in Germany, AWS says that it’s establishing an advisory board made up of EU residents and a devoted European safety operations middle.
“[W]e’ve designed the AWS European Sovereign Cloud to handle European digital sovereignty necessities whereas sustaining the companies portfolio, safety, reliability, and efficiency that prospects count on from AWS,” Renz mentioned in an announcement. “Our funding within the AWS European Sovereign Cloud reinforces our dedication to Europe’s digital future.”
Amazon has discovered itself within the crosshairs of European regulators earlier than for failing to adjust to EU competitors and knowledge privateness guidelines.
In 2021, Luxembourg’s knowledge watchdog slapped Amazon with a then-record €746 million (round $849 million) tremendous for allegedly processing person knowledge for focused promoting with out looking for folks’s consent. And in 2022, AWS settled an EU antitrust probe into the way it allegedly abused rivals’ gross sales knowledge to unfairly favor its personal merchandise.
