• Deutsche Telekom has won a sovereign AI contract with the German government
• It will provide an AI platform for Germany’s public administration sector
• Thales is also entering the German sovereignty race after launching a new service with Google Cloud

Deutsche Telekom and SAP have been selected to build a sovereign AI platform for the German government as the tech sector looks to cash in on the growing demand for sovereign services.

The telco and the giant German software company have been awarded a contract by the Federal Ministry for Digitalization and State Modernization (BMDS) for the tender ‘Provision of PaaS services for AI applications on a high-performance, secure, and sovereign cloud platform’. The decision came after Google and German IT services firm Adesso withdrew complaints over the procurement process.

The AI platform will act as a central hub for Germany’s public administration sector, providing a shared infrastructure for the federal government, states and municipalities.

Among the first applications to launch will be an AI assistant called KIPITZ, which will help public sector workers with document processing, knowledge management, translations, text summaries and planning approvals. It will run on Deutsche Telekom’s sovereign AI infrastructure.

For Tim Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom, the decision is also a political commitment: “Anyone who wants to remain relevant in the world must lead in the race for digital sovereignty. Europe has enormous catching up to do – and we will not close that gap through discussions but through action. Telekom and SAP are leading the way here. Together, we are ensuring that Germany and Europe take their digital future into their own hands.”

The win comes just days after Deutsche Telekom revealed it has been given approval for its T Cloud Public platform to become an official part of the German government’s framework agreement for cloud and AI services for federal, state and local authorities. The approval means T Cloud is now part of IT service provider Bechtle’s multicloud broker portal, allowing government bodies to use it without separate, lengthy procurement procedures.

But the giant German telco isn’t going to have it easy when it comes to landing the sovereign digital services deals in Germany. 

With demand for sovereign services growing, new competitors are targeting the German market, including French tech and security giant Thales, which has teamed up with Google Cloud to launch a European sovereign cloud offering, targeting the public sector and highly regulated industries in the country.

The strategic partnership is similar to a sovereign service that the French defence giant launched through its cloud subsidiary, S3NS, in France last year.

Thales said due to regulations, it will set up a new German entity that is legally and operationally independent from Google Cloud. It will be staffed and managed by local German employees, with plans for it to go live by the end of the year.

“Germany represents a critical market for sovereign technologies, and this partnership is a direct response to private and public sector German organisations wanting access to Google Cloud’s technology under full German control. By launching this locally operated infrastructure, we are delivering a solution that guarantees sensitive workloads remain protected from any extraterritorial reach while meeting the unique security and compliance requirements of our customers,” said Christoph Ruffner, CEO and country director of Thales in Germany.

The German unit will be technologically and operationally identical to S3NS offering in France, and will also offer redundancy and disaster recovery for customers there.

To find out much more about digital sovereignty and what it means for the telecom industry, check out our recent Digital sovereignty requirements panel at the DSP Leaders World Forum and download our new Digital Sovereignty: What It Means for Telcos report.

- James Pearce, Editor, TelecomTV