Folks stroll previous the brand of Amazon Internet Companies (AWS) at its exhibitor stall on the India Cell Congress 2025 at Yashobhoomi, a conference and expo heart in New Delhi, India, October 8, 2025.
Anushree Fadnavis | Reuters
Amazon‘s “sovereign cloud” providing in Europe is a “massive wager” for the corporate, AWS CEO Matt Garman informed CNBC because it launched on Thursday, in a transfer designed to maintain it among the many main gamers within the area amid stringent laws there for tech large.
The time period sovereign cloud broadly pertains to cloud computing providers the place the information is saved, dealt with and never moved out of a selected jurisdiction.
“We predict it is an enormous potential right here. We’re making a massive wager,” AWS CEO Matt Garman informed CNBC in an unique interview.
The European Union (EU) has pushed for firms working within the bloc to be compliant with its varied information and privateness laws, as issues have risen in regards to the dominance of U.S. tech giants within the cloud area and potential entry to European residents’ information.
The Amazon Internet Companies (AWS) European Sovereign Cloud, based mostly in Brandenburg, Germany, and first introduced in 2023, is a brand new idea. Amazon stated in a press launch on Thursday that the cloud is “bodily and logically separate” from different AWS areas. To do that, Amazon has created a brand new mother or father firm for the sovereign cloud that will likely be domestically managed within the European Union (EU) and run by EU residents.
Garman stated that prospects wished extra controls round sovereignty earlier than they moved information saved on-premise into the cloud. “And now we’re giving them a cloud that would not drive them to make these commerce offs. And we expect that that unlocks an enormous quantity of enterprise,” he stated.
The European Sovereign Cloud contains customer-controlled encryption, as an example, the place prospects can management the keys to their encryption and in order that “that if anybody was even in a position to get entry to [their data], they would not be capable to learn it,” Garman stated.
“We predict that these varied ranges of safety, each expertise protections in addition to coverage protections, actually layer that on and supply a very distinctive providing that is simply completely different than something on the market right this moment,” he added.
Stéphane Israël will lead the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. Stefan Hoechbauer, who’s vp of AWS world gross sales for Germany and Europe Central, has been appointed as a managing director. AWS additionally introduced 5 new members of an advisory board for the sovereign cloud, three of that are Amazon staff.
For the previous few years, European politicians and regulators have grown involved in regards to the dominance of U.S. tech corporations over crucial expertise infrastructure.
Regardless of the EU pushing for regional firms to develop their companies, AWS, Microsoft and Google account for 70% of the cloud computing market within the area, in keeping with Synergy Analysis Group.
Whilst AWS pushes its sovereign cloud, European regulators are at present investigating cloud computing providers from Amazon and Microsoft beneath the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which goals to curb the facility of Large Tech.
In 2024, Amazon stated it will make investments 7.8 billion euros ($9.1 billion) within the AWS European Sovereign Cloud in Germany by 2040. On Thursday, Amazon stated it will increase the AWS European Sovereign Cloud to Belgium, the Netherlands, and Portugal.
Elsewhere, AWS expects AI demand to proceed accelerating. “We proceed to be pleasantly stunned at how a lot demand is on the market, actually,” Garman stated.
“I do assume that all through 2026 we’ll see increasingly prospects actually beginning to get optimistic ROI out of their AI investments,” he added, including that by way of its AI coding agent Kiro prospects had been constructing “incredible new experiences into every part from monetary providers to healthcare to retail, actually sort of reimagining what’s on the market. So it is going from proof of idea to extra implementation throughout the group.”
Garman can also be enthusiastic about robots and “world fashions,” which discuss with AI fashions that perceive the bodily, actual world and are wanted to make advanced robots work, additionally referred to “bodily AI.” He stated that AWS was not at present constructing its personal world mannequin, nevertheless.
“Robotics is a gigantic alternative throughout many various industries, and so we’re fairly enthusiastic about it. And when [will] we actually sort of hit that capabilities curve? , it is anyone’s guess, however that expertise is progressing actually quickly,” he added.
