Dave Cottlehuber, the founder of Skunkwerks, a small technology infrastructure company in Austria, said that it has moved the few servers and databases of the company to American suppliers to European services since the start of the year. “First and foremost, these are values,” explains Cottlehuber. “For me, privacy is a right and not a privilege.” Cottlehuber says that the decision to move is easier for a small business like hers, but he argues that it deletes certain taxes which are paid to the Trump administration. “The best thing I can do is remove my little contribution from mine, and also at the same time, make sure that the privacy of my clients is respected and preserved,” explains Cottlehuber.
Steffen Schmidt, CEO of Medicusdata, a company that provides vocal text services to doctors and hospitals in Europe, says that having data in Europe has always been “essential”, but its customers have requested more in recent weeks. “Since the beginning of 2025, in addition to data residence guarantees, customers have actively asked us to use cloud suppliers who have been natively European companies,” said Schmidt, adding that some of his services have been transferred to the exoscope of Nöbauer.
Harry Staight, AWS spokesperson, says that it is not correct “that customers spend AWS alternatives to EU alternatives.” Our customers control where they store their data and how they are encrypted, and we do the Sovereign AWS Cloud by design “, explains Straight.” The AWS services take care of encryption with the keys managed by inaccessible customers in AWS, which means that customers have a complete control of who access their data. ” Staight says that membership of the Pclob “has no impact” the agreements concerning the sharing of EU-US and that the cloud law has “additional guarantees for the content of the cloud”.
The potential offset of American technological companies is not only linked to cloud suppliers. Since January 15, visitors to European alternatives website increased more than 1,200%. The site lists everything, from music streaming services to DDOS protection tools, explains Marko Saric, co -founder of European Cloud analytics plausible service. “We can certainly feel that something is happening,” said Saric, saying that during the first 18 days of March, the company “beat” the net growth of recurring income it saw in January and February. “It is organic growth that cannot be explained by any seasonality or our activities,” he says.
Although there are signs of movement, the impact is likely to be weak – at least for the moment. Throughout the world, governments and businesses use several cloud services – such as authentication, accommodation, data storage and increasingly providing AI processing – of the three major cloud and technological service providers. Cottlehuber says that, for large companies, this can take several months, if not more, to consider what must be moved, the risks involved, as well as really change the systems. “What’s going on if you have a hundred storage petacts, it will take years to spend on the internet,” he said.
For years, European companies have struggled to compete with Google, Microsoft and Amazon Cloud services and technical infrastructure, which make billions each year. It can also be difficult to find similar services on the scale of those provided by other European cloud companies.
“If you are deeply in the hyperscalor cloud ecosystem, you will find it difficult to find equivalent services elsewhere,” explains Bert Hubert, an entrepreneur and former government regulator, who says he has heard of several new cloud migrations to American or reconsidered companies. Hubert argued that he is no longer “sure” to European governments will be transferred to American clouds and that European alternatives Impossible to compete correctly. “We sell a lot of woods here in Europe. But not as much furniture, ”he says. However, this could also change.
Schaake, the former member of the European Parliament, affirms a combination of new investments, a different approach to the purchase of public services and an approach first in Europe or to invest in a European technological battery could help stimulate wider movements on the continent. “The dramatic change of the Trump administration is very tangible,” says Schaake. “The idea that everything could happen and that Europe should manage for itself. We must now see the same type of rhythm and leadership that we see with defense to transform this into significant action.”
