Sparkle, the first international service provider in Italy and among the top global operators, and Atos, a global leader in digital transformation, today announce a three-year agreement to address the growing demand from clients in European and other adjacent countries for cloud services and solutions. The partnership aims to develop business opportunities endorsing the global presence and the specific competence area of each company.

Sparkle and Atos’ collaboration kicks off with the Open Clouds for Research Environments (OCRE), an initiative that aims to accelerate the digitalization of European universities and research centers and the adoption of cloud systems, in which Sparkle is official cloud framework provider and Google Cloud integrator in 27 European countries. As part of the agreement, Atos will support Sparkle in providing professional, consulting and system integration services to the research and education community in France, Belgium, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Turkey, and Portugal with other countries to be added soon.

Beyond OCRE, Atos and Sparkle will also work together on public and private projects, leveraging their synergies in fixed, 5G, IoT and security services. The two companies will also target the sport and event market – in which Atos has a long experience, as the Worldwide IT Partner of the International Olympic Committee – to build an end-to-end offering, from infrastructure management to supporting major events.

“We are glad to partner with Atos. Putting together our expertise in cloud and digital services, we aim to further promote our offering which has already been successfully adopted by leading European universities and institutions, to the wider education and research community”, said Elisabetta Romano, CEO of Sparkle. “This partnership will also strengthen our ability to provide digital services to customers across various industries and ultimately broaden our horizons".

"We are proud to start this partnership with a leading Italian company whose strategic vision is of the utmost importance. We start cooperating in a field - Education and Scientific research - which is at the center of our national and European growth plans and in which digital transformation will play a central role over the next decade, in terms of innovation, economic and social development, resilience and shared culture and knowledge," said Giuseppe Di Franco, CEO of Atos Italia and EVP of Atos Group. "Our intent, in agreement with Sparkle, is to enhance mutual experiences by leveraging those services and markets in which the companies have established their leadership, and also by facilitating business development and international openings. We will thus create synergies and shared value".