For Airbus, the cloud is no longer just an IT decision. It has become a question of control.
Europe’s largest aerospace group is weighing a move away from two of its most important technology suppliers—Google and Microsoft—as it looks for a cloud environment governed entirely by European rules. According to reporting by The Register, Airbus is preparing to open a tender for a large-scale migration of sensitive workloads to what it describes as a digitally sovereign European cloud.
The shift would mark a significant change for a company that already relies heavily on US technology. Airbus has consolidated its data centre footprint and uses services such as Google Workspace. Microsoft tools are embedded across finance operations, and some military-classified data still sits outside the cloud entirely due to security restrictions.
Now, Airbus wants to take the next step: moving core systems that currently run on its own infrastructure into the cloud. These include enterprise resource planning software, manufacturing execution systems, customer relationship management tools, and product lifecycle management platforms that store aircraft designs.
The catch is that Airbus is not convinced the right provider exists yet. Internally, the company is estimating only an 80 per cent chance of finding a European cloud partner that meets its requirements.
“I need a sovereign cloud because part of the information is extremely sensitive from a national and European perspective,” Catherine Jestin, Airbus’s executive vice president of digital, told The Register. “We want to ensure this information remains under European control.”
Access to modern software is one of the pressures behind the move. Major vendors such as SAP are increasingly releasing new capabilities only through cloud platforms, leaving customers little choice but to adapt. In SAP’s case, that shift centres on S/4HANA, which is designed to run as a cloud-based system.
Airbus plans to launch its request for proposals in early January, with a decision expected before summer. The contract is expected to run for as long as ten years and is understood to be worth more than €50 million, with an emphasis on predictable pricing across the term.
The timing is not accidental. Digital sovereignty has moved up the agenda for many European organisations since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January. His trade policies and foreign policy positions have reintroduced uncertainty into transatlantic relationships, pushing some European companies to reconsider how dependent they are on US-based technology providers.
US cloud firms have responded with a range of sovereignty-focused offerings, designed to reassure customers that data hosted in Europe remains protected. Even so, concerns persist around the US CLOUD Act, which gives American authorities the power to request access to data held by US companies, regardless of where that data is physically stored.
At its core, digital sovereignty is about who has the final say. It refers to a country’s ability to govern its own digital infrastructure, data, and services under local laws. That includes decisions about where data is stored, who can access it, and which legal frameworks apply when disputes arise.
The CLOUD Act complicates that picture. Passed in 2018, the law allows US law enforcement to compel American technology firms to hand over data using warrants or subpoenas, even if the information is held on servers outside the United States. The legislation was introduced after US authorities struggled to obtain data under older laws written before cloud computing became widespread.
Microsoft has acknowledged the limits this creates. In a French court hearing last July, the company said it could not guarantee full data sovereignty under the CLOUD Act. Microsoft has also said it has not received US government requests for data stored on its European servers.
During the same hearing, the company was asked whether it would be required to comply with a valid request. Its representative, Anton Carniaux, responded: “Absolutely, by respecting this process. But again, this has not affected any European company, or a public sector body, since we have been publishing these transparency reports.”
For Airbus, the concern is not just legal theory. Jestin has said she is waiting for clearer guidance from European regulators on whether a sovereign cloud setup would truly shield the company from extraterritorial laws—and whether services could be disrupted if geopolitical tensions escalate.
There are recent examples that make those worries harder to dismiss. Karim Khan, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, reportedly lost access to his Microsoft email account after being sanctioned by Trump over criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Microsoft has denied suspending ICC services, but the episode has added to unease among institutions that depend on US platforms.
Beyond geopolitics, Airbus also questions whether European cloud providers have the technical scale to support its needs. “If you asked me today if we’ll find a solution, I’d say 80/20,” Jestin said.
That uncertainty places pressure on Europe’s cloud industry to work together. Whether providers can align, scale up, and meet Airbus’s requirements within the company’s timeframe remains an open question.
(Photo by Daniel Eledut)
See also: Why Nutanix sees sovereign cloud changing
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