Cloud, all the sparks in the European Gaia-X consortium?
Where is the Gaia-X European cloud project now after French provider Scaleway announced its retirement. The role of Huawei and Alibaba, the weight of Microsoft, Google, Amazon and IBM.
Turbulence in Gaia-X, a European consortium for the development of the common cloud.
On the occasion of the annual Gaia-x conference which ended on November 19th in Milan, the first frictions between the members emerged.
French cloud provider Scaleway, one of the 22 founding members of Gaia-X, announced Thursday that it will withdraw from the project and will not renew its membership. Reason? Too much "foreign interference":
According to an exchange of emails viewed by Politico , senior members of Gaia-X have expressed concern over the sponsorship of the annual conference entrusted to Chinese technology companies Huawei and Alibaba. The latter associated with the Gaia-X project.
In fact, concerns have recently grown over the fact that Gaia-X, promoted in particular by France and Germany which should have ushered in the era of European digital sovereignty over non-EU platforms and companies, is opening the door to large foreign technologies. .
Francesco Bonfiglio, CEO of Gaia-X, defended the project: “We are open to everyone, but we have strict control over our board of our mission and vision”.
The consortium is ready to launch a new labeling system that would ensure that customer data is stored and processed in Europe. Furthermore, the system would make the data "immune" to non-European laws. The aim of the project is not to create a new platform with which to compete with Microsoft or Google. How much a series of common rules to manage infrastructures and data spaces for European companies.
Additionally, the alliance said the first Gaia-X compliant cloud services will be ready in 2022.
All the details.
THE ABANDONMENT OF FRENCH SUPPLIER SCALEWAY
On November 18, French cloud provider Scaleway pulled out of Gaia-X. According to the French company, the project is currently "sidetracked and slowed down" in a way that benefits US cloud giants like Amazon, Microsoft and Google.
MICROSOFT, GOOGLE AND AMAZON AMONG THE 300 MEMBERS OF GAIA-X
Since its founding in June 2020 , Gaia-X has grown its membership from 22 original founding members to 310, including big tech companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and IBM. This sparked controversy last year when companies and digital activists warned that Gaia-X could end up being a "Trojan horse".
However, we remind you that foreign companies can join the consortium, but no exponent of non-EU companies can sit on the board.
SPONSORSHIP OF HUAWEI AND ALIBABA
As Euractiv recalls, with Huawei and Alibaba sponsors of this year's Gaia-X summit, concerns have grown that Europe is losing its grip on its project.
"As it stands now, Gaia-X will not help promote the move to the cloud and interoperability between cloud service providers and will not solve blocking effects," an anonymous source who worked on the project told Euractiv. past.
THE PERPLESSITIES OF BOARD MEMBERS SEEN BY POLITICIAN
Several board members expressed reservations that Chinese companies, as well as American cloud giants Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, are seen as key supporters of an initiative to promote European data “sovereignty”.
These perplexities emerge from an exchange of emails Politico viewed earlier last week in which board members muttered about sponsoring Chinese tech companies of the annual Gaia-X summit.
THE REPLICATION OF THE TOP
"Anyone who believes that the solution to European digital trust is to close the doors to non-Europeans does not understand what is happening with global data," said Bonfiglio, CEO of Gaia-X.
Maximillian Ahrens, chairman of the board of Gaia-X echoed, stating that consortium memberships are carefully evaluated. Furthermore, the goal of the organization was openness and inclusion.
AT WHAT POINT IS THE PROJECT
Despite internal disagreements, the Gaia-X cloud infrastructure project is about to go live. According to the wishes of the CEO Bonfiglio, in 2022 Gaia-X will kick off the adoption phase, with the development and growth of common projects.
WHAT THE FRENCH AND GERMAN MINISTERS SAY
Meanwhile, Politico also reports that German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier recorded a message at the annual conference in which he says he is impressed by the progress of the project, which will have a "huge impact by paving the way for digital sovereignty and a rich data economy ".
Even the French Minister of Economy, Bruno Le Maire, reiterated the importance of Gaia-X to "build a Europe of digital independence". “I call on our European partners, public and private, states and companies, to join this fantastic adventure which is to build our digital sovereignty. The stakes are high, it is nothing more than protecting our political sovereignty, ”added Le Maire.
PARALLEL PROJECT?
However, one wonders if Gaia-X could be successful since last year Brussels announced a parallel initiative: the Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge and Cloud . For the alliance of the European Commission, membership and access will be much more stringent. Participating companies must demonstrate that "control over the legal entity by a third country (…) does not affect the freedom of the legal entity to use its infrastructure, software, services, facilities, assets, resources, intellectual property or know -how necessary for the purposes of the Alliance ".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/cloud-tutti-gli-scazzi-nel-consorzio-europeo-gaia-x/ on Tue, 23 Nov 2021 05:56:22 +0000.