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One topic dominated the recent 2025 OpenInfra Summit Europe, and it wasn't AI:
Unlike any tech conference I've attended in the last few years, the top issue at the 2025 OpenInfra Summit Europe at the École Polytechnique Paris was not AI. Shocking, I know. Indeed, OpenInfra Foundation general manager Thierry Carrez commented, "Did you notice what I didn't talk about in my keynote? I made no mention of AI." But one issue that did appear -- and would show up over and over again in the keynotes, the halls, and the vendor booths -- was digital sovereignty.
Digital sovereignty is the ability of a country, organization, or individual to control its own digital infrastructure, technologies, data, and online processes without undue external dependency on foreign entities or large technology companies. In other words, Europeans are tired of relying on what they see as increasingly unreliable American companies and the US government.
Carrez explained: "We've seen old alliances between the US and the EU being questioned or leveraged for immediate gains. We have seen the very terms of exchange of goods changing almost every day. And as a response to that, in Europe, we're moving to digital sovereignty." That shift, in turn, means open-source software.
"The world needs sovereign, high-performance and sustainable infrastructure," continued Carrez, "that remains interoperable and secure, while collaborating tightly with AI, containers and trusted execution environments. Open infrastructure allows nations and organizations to maintain control over their applications, their data, and their destiny while benefiting from global collaboration."
Carrez thinks a better word for what Europe wants is not isolation from the US: "What we're really looking for is resilience. What we want for our countries, for our companies, for ourselves, is resilience. Resilience in the face of unforeseen events in a fast-changing world. Open source," he concluded, "allows us to be sovereign without being isolated."
[...] To make life easier for users -- and to turn a profit, naturally -- many European companies are now offering technology programs to help users achieve digital sovereignty. These programs include Deutsche Telekom, with its Open Telekom Cloud, and OVH, STACKIT, and VanillaCore. Each of these companies relies on OpenStack to power its European-based cloud offerings for individuals, companies, and governments. In addition, other European open-source-based tech businesses, such as SUSE and NextCloud, offer digital sovereignty solutions using other programs.
In conversations at the conference, it became clear that while the changes in American government policy have been worrying Europeans, it's not just politics that has them concerned. People are also upset about Microsoft's 365 price increases. Another tech business issue that's unnerved them is Broadcom's acquisition of VMware and its subsequent massive price increases. This has led to a rise in the use of open-source office software, such as LibreOffice, and its web-based brother, Collabora Online, and the migration of VMware customers to OpenStack-based services.
The sovereignty issue is not going to go away. As Carrez said in a press conference: "It's extremely top of mind in the EU right now, it's what everyone is just talking about, and it's what everybody is doing." Open source is essential to this movement. As Mike McDonough, head of software product management for Catchengo, a "sovereign by design" cloud company, said: "No one can lock you up; no one can take it away from you, and if someone decides to fork the code, you can continue adopting it anywhere in the world."
All in all, participants agreed that Europe's sovereign cloud movement is reaching critical mass as governments and enterprises move data back from the US-based hyperscalers. European organizations are realizing they need more private infrastructure capacity and local talent to run big cloud initiatives. So, they're turning to open source because, as Carrez concluded, "what makes us resilient is our open-source community."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Thursday October 23, @04:54PM (1 child)
I read the guy's "cloud overview". He seems to be a good dude in general although I have three critiques of his overview:
1) He wrote that with the intent of selling cloud. Its a very journalistic idea to determine the conclusion then do the research and writing to support the predetermined conclusion. Was NOT impressed with that. All of his essays seem to be like that.
2) In the short term, cloud is bad for EU. They have WAY too much supply of "computer peeps" and WAY too little demand of "computer jobs" so pay is stunningly low. I vaguely recall a sci fi author named Stross who moved into the famously low paying genre of small time amateur book authors because that pays far more than being a sysadmin in the UK. AFAIK working as a sysadmin outside of London in the UK pays less than working at Panda Express fast food right down the road from my house in the USA. EU needs fewer uni grads and/or more jobs for uni grads, at least WRT "computer stuff". My point is it makes sense for Google to cloud everything up if their two options are pay a guy $600K without cloud or pay a new guy a mere $400K with supply demand pressure from the cloud, and thats OK because the cloud middlemen can make $100K of profit, Google sysadmin dept can save $100K overall, of course the employee gets screwed by making $200K less, but if he's happy with a "mere" $400K/yr thats seen as "OK". This does not extend to EU because then UK sysadmins would go from minimal pay to a large negative pay rate, the social turmoil of annihilating the entire IT industry in the UK is not worth it as a top down policy. Furthermore the UK companies can't afford to pay the greedy inefficient cloud middlemen $100K because they don't even pay their staff that much in total right now, they literally can't afford the higher costs of cloud its outside their economic class. Similar sized companies scratch the back of similar sized companies. What makes sense for giant Ford or giant GM does not linear scale to VW. It might stab a knife in VW and destroy the company to try to emulate Ford. What helps big companies get bigger and further ahead of smaller companies... does not help smaller EU companies... Why pay Azure thousands of dollars per month for a simple managed MSSQL server if you could hire an entire consulting company in Poland for less money and get 10x better service? EU should be competing against the cloud, not trying to be the cloud. They should be trying to be outsourced to, not be outsourced from. Its a supply demand relative salary thing. Cloud is dumb if labor is cheap and middlemen are expensive.
3) In the long term, cloud is bad for EU. They as a continent seem hell bent on having their legacy civilization invaded and replaced by a stronger, growing civilization. In the long run, only half the UK will be literate, that only in Arabic, and the other half will be doing stuff they're doing now like toss the gays off rooftops and similar social views and activities that they presently have. They like rape gangs in the UK, for example, and that will be a big thing in the future in the EU in general. A cloud system is complicated and expensive because of the middlemen. A smaller, shrinking, less competent, far less educated, lower IQ violent and unsafe EU of the future cannot afford a wildly over complicated and expensive cloud strategy that makes sense for hyperinflated high-trust somewhat uni-cultural growing areas like Silicon Valley and not much else. The system-wide solution to problems in the EU is likely to match the systems and processes to the population's demographics and skills, maybe roll back to paper forms, typewriters, that sort of thing. The EU of the future will quite literally be something like the Zimbabwe of today because it will literally be those people, living in the EU, living day to day just as they live today outside the EU. There is no need for a cloud based digitally sovereign AI processor if the primary business process in the EU in, say, 2050, is some gang leader rolls up with ten guys with rifles and machetes and takes what he wants and thats how accounting works in 2050 in the EU. EU of 2050 is not going to be using REST APIs and blockchains if their primary tools and protocols post-demographic replacement involve slashing knives and starvation. Does Haiti in 2025 need a cloud, LOL heck no. They need clean drinking water, sewers, and food and they do not have the ability and competence as a population to provide that, they have no need for "a cloud", that's for other more advanced civilizations. The guy preselected a solution that does not match any of the EU's long term problems.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pTamok on Thursday October 23, @07:28PM
An interesting proposition. I look forward to reading the argument.
What? I live in Europe, and I don't recognise this characterisation. Where has this come from?
I didn't think the PISA statistics [wikipedia.org] were that bad, and the USA is worse.
No, not at all. No idea what your source is, but it is wrong.
The average educational level of the EU is very high. As for public safety, just contrast the homicide statistics per head of population in the USA compared to anywhere in Europe. As for high trust: the canonical 'high trust' societies are the Nordic countries, in Europe.
You could be right: there is a lot of academic work on the problem of the missing productivity [wikipedia.org] - despite huge investment in IT, the productivity of knowledge workers has scarcely budged.
That's a bold statement, but I don't see any data backing it.
That's a huge 'if' doing a lot of work there.
How does one provide "clean drinking water, sewers, and food" efficiently and effectively? IT systems of some sort might be involved somewhere along the line. Centralised IT has a habit of being used, which is basically 'cloud' (computing on somebody-else's computer)
Great statement, but I see no evidence to back it.
Sorry, I don't think your text supports the initial proposition.