Octave Klaba (OVHcloud): only political action can break digital slavery

The Trump administration's unorthodox ways have woken up a section of European politics with the equivalent of a well-aimed slap in the face. Despite the fact that the Old Continent's chronic technological backwardness has long been known, it took a robust injection of tariffs and the cutting of a few essential cloud services 'at the right time' to make those who should have long ago heeded the warnings echoing in many sectors realise that it is extremely dangerous, harmful and unwise to continue ignoring hi-tech development. At present, the vast majority of strategic software for companies (whether large or small) is in the hands of non-European, mostly American, giants. As far as IT infrastructures are concerned, the situation is no better: according to a study conducted by Synergy Research Group, in mid-2025 the three American giants AWS, Microsoft and Google Cloud held around 70% of the European cloud market, with local providers having stopped at 15% in total for about four years (halting a dangerous trend that saw them nosedive from 29% in 2017). And without cloud, big companies grind to a halt, with all the attendant consequences. But why are we lagging so far behind? And is there a solution to the current situation? The Trump administration's unorthodox ways have woken up a section of European politics with the equivalent of a well-aimed slap in the face. Despite the fact that the Old Continent's chronic technological backwardness has long been known, it took a robust injection of tariffs and the cutting of a few essential cloud services 'at the right time' to make those who should have long ago heeded the warnings echoing in many sectors realise that it is extremely dangerous, harmful and unwise to continue ignoring hi-tech development. At present, the vast majority of strategic software for companies (whether large or small) is in the hands of non-European, mostly American, giants. As far as IT infrastructures are concerned, the situation is no better: according to a study conducted by Synergy Research Group, in mid-2025 the three American giants AWS, Microsoft and Google Cloud held around 70% of the European cloud market, with local providers having stopped at 15% in total for about four years (halting a dangerous trend that saw them nosedive from 29% in 2017). And without cloud, big companies grind to a halt, with all the attendant consequences. But why are we lagging so far behind? And is there a solution to the current situation?

We spoke about this with Octave Klaba, founder and CEO of OVHcloud (Europe's largest cloud provider), who outlined an articulate and often countercultural vision of the future of European digital sovereignty. The topic, as we have said, has become central to the public debate, especially as global competition over data control, cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence intensifies. However, in Klaba's words emerges an awareness that is as pragmatic as it is disillusioned: "Europe has the talent, businesses and skills to build technological autonomy, but struggles to translate this potential into a concrete industrial strategy." And the reason, the CEO argues, is primarily political.

Klaba starts from a fact: European companies are perfectly capable of building cloud infrastructures, advanced digital solutions and platforms that compete on a technical level with American and Chinese giants. OVHcloud has several proprietary data centres and in-house developed technologies. The industrial ecosystem exists, as does the ability to innovate and also a certain foresight in many realities that leads them to create data centres that will have to meet the needs of businesses in the next five to ten years. What is lacking, according to the CEO, is the political capacity to strongly support an autonomous digital infrastructure. Technology alone is not enough: leadership in data management is now a matter of geopolitics and economic power. The rules that determine who can operate in a market, how citizens' data are processed and what requirements digital service providers have to meet are not technical choices: they are political choices. And while the US and China actively defend their national champions, incorporating strategic technologies into their industrial policy, Europe tends to take a much more fragmented approach. The EU produces complex and often ambitious regulations, but without a long-term vision of how to support its players. In other words, it asks European companies to create technologies that are then put on the market to compete with the giants, without any support. Yet, politics has a decisive role in designing a market in which local players can truly compete. Politics, according to Klaba, should define rules that promote interoperability, foster transparency, protect citizens' data and, above all, prevent the dominance of a few foreign giants from stifling competition. We are not talking about protectionism, but about balance. According to him, Europe must stop being just a market, but must transform itself into an entity capable of deciding which technologies are strategic and what systemic risks foreign dependencies entail.

In the vision of the OVHcloud CEO, a true digital sovereignty strategy must rest on three pillars. The first is the construction of an open European infrastructure based on transparent and interoperable standards. OVHcloud, with its programmatic choice of open source, represents an alternative model to the closed systems of the large hyperscalers. For Klaba, openness means control, verifiability and the possibility of evolving technologies without depending on a single entity.

The second is the development of a competitive ecosystem, involving large companies, start-ups and research centres. Europe must continuously support players that produce local innovation, not only through economic incentives but also with rules that avoid concentrations of technological power. For the CEO, the biggest mistake would be to let the game be played exclusively on a global scale, with rules defined by others.