Europe takes steps towards sovereign cloud and AI infrastructure

The European Commission and a consortium led by Spanish telecom firm Telefónica have launched EURO-3C, a €75 million project to build Europe's first large-scale federated Telco-Edge-Cloud infrastructure. This pan-European initiative aims to reduce reliance on foreign tech providers and strengthen the continent's digital sovereignty.

This infrastructure aims to provide a secure, open platform that fosters digital and industrial transformation across Europe. By connecting existing national infrastructures, EURO-3C aims to create a scalable, interoperable ecosystem that reduces the continent's reliance on US and Chinese tech providers.

Renate Nikolay, Deputy Director General at the European Commission, said: “The European Commission strongly promotes secure digital communication infrastructures made in Europe, aiming to make the most of telco-edge-cloud convergence, with and for AI. The EU-funded project EURO-3C federates the efforts of a very large number of European players around a common goal: to build a secure and sovereign convergent communications landscape, for the benefit of industrial sectors supplying and using technology, and for society at large.”

Federation, collaboration, impact

EURO-3C is built upon three key pillars: federation, pan-European industrial-scale collaboration, and validated impact through real-world use cases. Rather than constructing a cloud platform from scratch, the project focuses on connecting existing infrastructures across different European countries into a federated network.

To this end, this approach involves deploying over 70 Edge and Cloud nodes in more than 13 European countries. These nodes will support the development of new use cases across sectors such as transport, automotive, security, and energy to validate the infrastructure's impact.

The EURO-3C consortium comprises over 70 entities, including telecom operators, cloud providers, technology manufacturers, small and medium-sized enterprises, universities, and research centers. Supported by national authorities from Finland, Greece, Czechia, Spain, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, and Sweden, the project aligns with the EU's '2030 Digital Decade Policy Programme'.

A joint effort for sovereignty

Technological sovereignty and industrial competitiveness have become priorities for the EU. Juan Montero, Director of Public Policy, Competition and Regulation at Telefónica, said: “Achieving this requires not only advanced digital infrastructures but also strong collaboration across sectors and countries. And the telecommunications sector is a key player in this effort. EURO-3C is a shared effort to reinforce Europe’s industrial leadership and lay the foundations for true digital sovereignty.”

Telefónica officials have identified automotive, e-health, public services, and sovereign government cloud as priority sectors for the new infrastructure, with a strong emphasis on AI systems capable of autonomous actions.