US ‘Cloud’ Supremacy Has Europe Worried About Data

Paris, Aug 4 (AFP/APP): Europe is sitting on a wealth of data that is the 21st equivalent of a precious metal mine during the gold rush.

But instead of exploiting it themselves Europeans may be allowing American tech giants to gain control of all the excavation equipment, some experts say, pointing to a flurry of European companies announcing deals with US tech players for cloud services.

Renault, Orange, Deutsche Bank, and Lufthansa recently plumped for Google Cloud. Volkswagen signed up with Amazon Web Services. The French health ministry chose Microsoft to house its research data.

The cloud is a term for offering data storage and processing services externally so clients don’t need to invest as much in costly gear.

This trend has sparked concern particularly in Germany, which has a rich trove of data thanks to its powerful industrial sector.

The EU is “losing its influence in the digital sphere at the moment it is taking a central role in the continent’s economy” warned a recent report by a group of experts and media leaders under the leadership of the former head of German software firm SAP, Henning Kagermann.

“The majority of European data is stocked outside of Europe, or, if stocked in Europe, is on servers that belong to non-European firms,” it noted.

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