Rui Carmo
This one deserves a link to my disclaimer, even though it is quite obviously way above my pay grade.
I do find it positive in the sense that it is a step towards a more resilient and privacy-focused digital landscape in Europe, but I also have to wonder about the implications of such commitments in the context of the ongoing geopolitical tensions and the need for data sovereignty–in short, we’ve been discussing the lack of an European cloud for decades in my closest circles both inside and outside work, and something like this was a long time coming.
Like I pointed out in various (public) places, hosters are not hyperscalers, and being able to spin up a VM on European soil is not the same as having a full-fledged cloud provider with all the bells and whistles. The fact that my current employer is committing to a 40% increase in datacenter capacity in Europe, along with the establishment of sovereign cloud options in France and Germany, is a pretty positive sign that they are taking the needs of European customers seriously even if they weren’t signing my paycheck.
The bit that might come in under the radar, though, is the one I find the most interesting myself: setting up legal mechanisms to contest any government edict that might disrupt cloud operations.
Given the current worldwide situation, it’s a pretty strong statement on the US side, and acknowledgement that digital systems are not immune to geopolitical fickleness.