Dave Cottlehuber, founder of Skunkwerks, a small Austrian tech infrastructure company, said he has moved a handful of the company’s servers and databases from U.S. providers to European services since the beginning of the year. “First of all, it’s about values,” Kurt Huber said. “For me, privacy is a right rather than a privilege,” Kurt Huber said the move decision is easier for small businesses like him, but he believes it cancels some of the taxes paid to the Trump administration. “The best thing I can do is to eliminate my small contributions while ensuring respect and preservation of my clients’ privacy,” he said.
Medicusdata CEO Steffen Schmidt, a company that provides text voice services to European doctors and hospitals, said having data in Europe is always a “must” but his clients have been asking for more in recent weeks. “In addition to data residency assurance, customers have actively asked us to use cloud providers of local European companies since the beginning of 2025,” Schmidt said, adding that some of his services have been transferred to the appearance of Nöbauer.
AWS spokesman Harry Staight said customers are shifting from AWS to EU alternatives “inaccurate.” “Our customers have control over where they store and how they encrypt their data, and we have AWS Cloud Cloud by-Design designed,” Straight said. “AWS services support encryption with customer-hosted keys that AWS cannot access, meaning customers have full control over who accesses their data.” Statt said that members of PCLOB “do not affect” the protocol surrounding EU data sharing, and that the Cloud Act has “additional cloud content guarantees.” Google and Microsoft declined to comment.
The potential shift from US tech companies is not only related to cloud providers. Since January 15, visit European Alternatives website Increased by more than 1,200%. Marko Saric, co-founder of Cloud Analytics Service in Europe, said the site lists everything from music streaming services to DDOS protection tools. “We can certainly feel what’s going on,” Sarik said, claiming that the company “beats” the net recurring revenue growth seen in January and February in the first 18 days of March. “This is organic growth and cannot be explained by any seasonality or our activities,” he said.
Despite signs of exercise, the impact may be small, at least so far. Globally, governments and businesses use a variety of cloud services (such as authentication measures, hosting, data storage, and data centers that provide AI processing) from the three major cloud and technology service providers. For large businesses, it can take months to consider what needs to be moved, the risks involved, and the actual changes in the system can take months, Kurt Huber said. “What happens if you have a hundred times the storage space, it will take years to move through the internet,” he said.
European companies have struggled to compete with companies like Google, Microsoft and Amazon’s Cloud Services and technology infrastructure for years, which serve billions of dollars a year. It may be difficult to find similar services at the scale provided by alternative European cloud companies.
“If you dig deep into the Hyperscaler Cloud ecosystem, you’ll have a hard time finding the equivalent service,” said Bert Hubert, an entrepreneur and former government regulator. Hubert argued that it’s no longer “safe” European government to be moved to the US cloud and European alternatives Can’t compete correctly. “We sell a lot of fine wood in Europe. But not that much furniture,” he said. But that may change, too.
Schaake, a former member of the European Parliament, said a combination of new investments, another way to buy public services, and a European-first approach or investment European Technology Stack Can help stimulate any wider movement on the continent. “The sharp shift in the Trump administration is very tangible,” Shaq said. “The idea that anything can happen and that Europe should resist on its own is clear. Now, we need to see the same pace and leadership we see in our defense to actually turn it into meaningful action.”
