European businesses are reconsidering their cloud provider selections in light of escalating trade tensions, taking into account both technical and geopolitical concerns.

Benjamin Revcolevschi, CEO of OVHCloud, says these issues are beginning to move from IT departments to boardrooms.

Revcolevschi stated during the company's quarterly results call that private enterprises and public organizations in Europe are becoming more concerned with the present geopolitical environment. CEOs are now discussing issues related to strategic autonomy. Selecting a cloud provider is now a strategic decision as well as a technological one.

Although data centers are essential to AI research and digital operations, US hyperscalers Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud possess a large portion of the infrastructure supporting these endeavors. European businesses are looking at options that provide greater control over data and supply chains in response to rising tariffs and worries about digital sovereignty.

This change is advantageous to several providers, including OVHCloud, which has 43 data centers globally. There is increasing impetus for in-house solutions, as seen by the €3 billion investment in AI infrastructure recently announced by its local rival Iliad through its data center division, OpCore.