SAP intends to invest more than €20 billion (approximately $23 billion) to develop its sovereign cloud offering in the European Union.
This is a strategic response to the growing demand for data sovereignty, driven by regulations such as RODO and the upcoming AI Act.
The German giant’s investment is aimed at strengthening its position in the clash with US suppliers.
The initiative involves making the full suite of SAP software, including ERP systems, available through an infrastructure located exclusively in Europe.
Customers will be able to use SAP data centres within the EU, German Delos Cloud resources, as well as local deployments in a private cloud model.
The aim is to ensure that customer data, especially from the public sector and regulated industries, never leaves a particular jurisdiction, which is key to compliance.
SAP’s move is not isolated and is part of a wider market trend. Major technology players are already stepping up their activities in this area.
Amazon has announced the launch of AWS European Sovereign Cloud, Microsoft has expanded its sovereignty programme and Google Cloud is using Mandiant’s support to strengthen cyber defences in its European data centres.
Oracle and Broadcom (through VMware) are also betting on private cloud solutions to meet the demands of enterprise customers.
Pressure on suppliers is also being increased by the rapid development of generative artificial intelligence. Companies are concerned about the risks of sharing their sensitive data with large language models (LLMs) trained in the public cloud.
In this context, SAP is positioning itself as a provider offering sovereignty at every level of the technology stack – from infrastructure to business applications and AI tools. The battle for the European cloud market is entering a new phase, where digital sovereignty is becoming a key battleground.
