• Deutsche Telekom wants to be Europe’s sovereign cloud lynchpin 
• It is bolstering its T Cloud Public platform
• DT says its cloud services will achieve near parity with those of the US hyperscalers this year

Deutsche Telekom has further bolstered its role as a provider of sovereign digital services by expanding its T Cloud Public platform so that it offers European users a regional alternative to US cloud services hegemony.

DT is at the forefront of Europe’s digital sovereignty push. In November last year, its CEO Timotheus Höttges and Orange Group CEO Christel Heydemann issued a joint statement to note they “strongly support” collective efforts to protect strategic European interests and that, along with 10 partners, they had formed a new industry alliance, the European Sovereign Tech Industry Alliance (ESTIA), to “promote EU digital sovereignty and advocate for a stronger focus on European digital solutions, especially in the area of cloud” – see CEOs of DT and Orange issue digital sovereignty call to action.

Now, having unveiled T Cloud Public, which offers European public cloud solutions from datacentres in Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, in September last year, DT is now positioning the public cloud platform as “a fully fledged, sovereign high-tech alternative for Europe” that is the region’s “answer to [the] hyperscalers”.  

According to DT, by the end of this year its cloud portfolio will “close the feature gap with US providers in key core capabilities and deliver scalable infrastructure and specialised AI services at a competitive level” – essentially offering near parity with the product sets on offer from Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, all of which have been investing heavily in Europe (in infrastructure as well as local human resources) in order to meet the region’s cloud and AI services requirements. 

But the message from DT, which chimes with those coming from the European Commission, is clear – Europe needs sovereign services to be delivered by European companies. 

“We are ending the era of either-or decisions,” stated Dr. Ferri Abolhassan, CEO of DT’s enterprise services division, T-Systems. “Until now, companies had to choose between maximum functionality from overseas or European sovereignty. With T Cloud Public, we now deliver the best of both worlds. We are not just building a sovereign cloud; we are building the digital foundation for a competitive and free Europe.”

DT claims it is positioning itself as “one of the few European alternatives operating on a technological level comparable to global cloud providers,” as the  T Cloud Public platform “not only outperforms European alternatives but is already more competitive than some offerings from big tech companies”, according to analysis undertaken by the Information Services Group (ISG).

Notably, the T Cloud Public will be “combined seamlessly with the Industrial AI Cloud for accelerated AI applications through latest-gen GPU power”. That Industrial AI Cloud, which officially goes live on 4 February, “increases the available GPU capacity in Germany by 50% and forms Europe’s largest sovereign AI infrastructure,” according to DT. 

The Industrial AI Cloud, it should be noted, is being built by DT in partnership with US AI tech giant Nvidia. 

As for the sovereign angle, DT states its T Cloud Public, which is already serving more than 4,000 enterprise customers, “enables fully EU-compliant data processing in European datacentres that are strictly protected against access by third countries. This promise goes beyond software security alone. Customers are guaranteed comprehensive legal and operational sovereignty under European law and standards,” the telco stated. 

Dr Christine Knackfuss, who is chief sovereignty officer and a member of the board at T-Systems, noted: “We continuously challenge our own level of sovereignty, using our telecommunication industry regulations as a key benchmark, and are exploring ways to become even more independent.”

As an extra note, here is DT’s definition of digital sovereignty: “The ability of states, companies and citizens to control their digital systems and data independently, without reliance on third countries or foreign corporations. This includes data sovereignty, legal sovereignty, operational sovereignty and technological sovereignty.” 

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV