From The Register, July 17:
Total of 900 applications including ERP, CRM, and manufacturing systems going to be kept 'under European control'
Airbus is migrating its most critical applications for sensitive workloads from AWS to French cloud provider Scaleway's under a drive to increase digital sovereignty.
As exclusively revealed by The Register in December, the European-based aerospace manufacturer, said it needed to guarantee the data remained “under European control" and was launching a tender at the start of 2026.
Catherine Jestin, head of digital at Airbus, told us on Thursday: "The selection of Scaleway is a combination of a very strong technical answer and a very strong commercial offer making it competitive compared to hyperscalers' public cloud offerings. In addition, Scaleway is committed to involving Airbus in the definition of its future product roadmap."
"The objective is to host Airbus's most critical applications (those required for the Minimum Viable Company). This represents 900 applications and we will start with 70 of them today hosted on AWS."
Applications being sent to Scaleway include ERP, manufacturing execution systems, CRM, and product lifecycle management. Finding a cloud provider to host its most sensitive applications for defense and industrial workloads was not a certainty when the process began, Airbus told us last year, because European cloud providers do not have the scale of their US rivals.
Jestin said Airbus will continue to work with AWS. Skywise, a platform that aggregates and analyzes aviation data, and Case Management Assistant for customers' technical queries will continue to be hosted by AWS.
In a statement, she said: “By integrating a trusted, high performance, cloud environment that keeps our critical data assets shielded from foreign extraterritorial laws, we are ensuring that our digital infrastructure keeps pace with our aerospace innovation, while maintaining control and resilience of our industrial operations.”
Since President Donald Trump came to power for a second term, his antagonistic approach to allies - some of them now former allies - has created economic and geopolitical tensions between the US and Europe.
This has heightened concern about the US Cloud Act, which allows the American government to request data held in overseas datacenters owned by US businesses, and only served to reinforce calls for digital sovereignty....
....MORE, plus previous articles.
Here at the Sun King Group we're all for French sovereign AI, France was one of the first major markets to which Nvidia made the sovereignty pitch:
December 2023 - Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Says AI to See ‘Major Second Wave (NVDA)
AI to See ‘Major Second Wave,’ NVIDIA CEO Says in Fireside Chat With iliad Group Exec
NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang says sovereign AI a growing need for countries to reflect unique cultural, linguistic, industrial characteristics
European startups will get a massive boost from a new generation of AI infrastructure, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said Friday in a fireside chat with iliad Group Deputy CEO Aude Durand — and it’s coming just in time.
February 2024 - "Nvidia chief sees rise of ‘sovereign AI’ infrastructure across nations, driving demand for company’s advanced chips"
March 2024 - Here's Nvidia's "Sovereign AI" Pitch (NVDA)
June 2024 - France's "Mistral AI warns of lack of data centres and training capacity in Europe"
October 2024 - "Parlez-vous AI? Francophone scholars warn against English language dominating AI"
January 2025 - "Jensen Huang Wants to Make AI the New World Infrastructure" (NVDA)
This sovereign AI you speak of, I have heard of it.
I have heard wondrous tales of immense wealth,
Of amazing deeds performed as if by magic.
Yes I have heard of all of this...*
February 2026 - French Tech: "Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch’s $1.4B Data Center Push Powers Europe’s A.I. Autonomy"
May 2026 - "Europe built sovereign clouds to escape US control. Then forgot about the processors"
May 2026 - FrenchTech: "Mistral AI's CEO says Europe has 2 years to stop becoming America's AI 'vassal state'"
And many more, albeit with a few diversions:
.... This is terrible. I now have Jensen Huang speaking in Dr. Martin Luther King's cadences as he repurposes the penultimate paragraph of "I have a Dream":
Let AI ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.I may have to go lie down.
Let AI ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let AI ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let AI ring.
