Europe’s Cloud Crisis: Why US Tech Giants Hold the Power & What Must Change
Europe’s data infrastructure is built on US clouds. But what if that changes? With rising tensions and no European alternative, data engineers must start thinking about Plan B—before it’s too late.
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Greetings, Data Engineers,
Europe’s cloud industry is at a crossroads.
With US tech giants controlling the vast majority of cloud infrastructure—and no European alternative at scale—businesses are increasingly vulnerable to geopolitical tensions.
If access to AWS, GCP, or Azure were ever restricted, companies would face an expensive and complex challenge with no easy solutions. For data engineers, the situation is even more difficult.
Unlike web developers, who can switch hosting providers with relative ease, data teams are deeply locked into cloud-native tools that have no simple replacements.
The question is: What happens if things change?
I’m excited that my buddy,
has agreed to write a foreword for this essay, adding his perspective on the challenges and opportunities in Europe’s cloud ecosystem.😎 Foreward by from
Europe’s cloud infrastructure is built on a fragile foundation.
For years, companies have relied on AWS, GCP, and Azure as their default platforms. It was an easy choice—scalable, cost-efficient, and with a vast ecosystem of managed services. But what if that choice is suddenly taken away? What if a political shift, a trade conflict, or a regulatory change locks European businesses out of their own digital infrastructure?
This is not a hypothetical concern. It’s a question that’s been coming up more and more frequently in discussions I’ve had with CTOs, engineers, and business leaders. The dependency on US tech giants has quietly shaped the European IT landscape, but now, companies are waking up to the risks.
As engineers, we love the convenience of managed services. Why spend time reinventing the wheel when cloud providers offer cutting-edge, out-of-the-box solutions? But this convenience comes at a price—vendor lock-in. Unlike web developers who can switch hosting providers with relative ease, data engineers are deeply embedded in cloud-specific ecosystems. Moving away from them isn’t just an inconvenience—it’s a structural change that can take years.
The reality is that Europe has been too slow to build its own alternatives. We have strong players—STACKIT, OVHcloud, Hetzner—but they don’t operate at hyperscaler levels. Even companies that are privacy-focused or wary of geopolitical risks struggle to find a viable European alternative to the big three US clouds.
So, where does that leave us?
I see three critical steps European businesses must take:
Reduce dependency on a single provider: Even if AWS, GCP, or Azure remains your primary choice, diversify where possible. Explore multi-cloud strategies or hybrid setups that provide flexibility in the face of uncertainty.
Embrace open-source solutions: Proprietary managed services are great until they aren’t. If you have the engineering capacity, start experimenting with open-source alternatives like MinIO for storage, Apache Iceberg for data lakes, and SQLMesh for transformations.
Pressure European cloud providers to step up: If there’s ever a time for Europe to invest in its own cloud infrastructure, it’s now. But that won’t happen without demand. Companies need to actively push for better services from local providers, not just wait for them to magically catch up.
This is a discussion that needs to happen at every level—from engineering teams to boardrooms to policymakers. The dominance of US cloud providers isn’t just a technical problem; it’s a strategic one.
Yordan and I have explored this topic from different angles, and I’m excited to see the discussion continue. The future of Europe’s cloud ecosystem is uncertain, but one thing is clear: the time to prepare for change is now.
– Adrian Stanek
🇪🇺 The Current Situation: Europe’s Cloud Dependence
Europe’s IT industry runs almost entirely on American cloud providers. Whether you’re managing a startup, a bank, or a multinational enterprise, your infrastructure is likely built on AWS, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure.
These platforms power everything from web hosting to AI models, data lakes, and analytics pipelines. For data teams, they provide essential services like AWS Glue for ETL, Google BigQuery for analytics, Azure Synapse for warehousing, and Snowflake for scalable storage and querying.
For years, this reliance on US cloud providers wasn’t a problem. The cloud was simply the best option—scalable, cost-effective, and reliable.
But today, there’s growing uncertainty about whether this dependence is sustainable. With increasing political tensions between the US and Europe, some companies are beginning to question the long-term stability of their cloud strategy.
So far, trade disputes have focused on physical goods such as steel, cars, and semiconductors. But digital services could easily become the next battleground.
New laws, restrictions, or geopolitical conflicts could change how the US could providers operate in Europe. If access to AWS, GCP, or Azure is ever restricted, companies would have no immediate fallback.
This leaves European businesses with only two real alternatives:
The first is moving on-prem, which is costly, slow, and often impractical for cloud-native companies.
The second is switching to Alibaba Cloud, but that comes with serious risks. Given concerns about Chinese government influence over private companies, many European businesses would be reluctant to trust Alibaba with their data infrastructure.
Neither option is particularly appealing. And that raises a bigger problem—Europe has no homegrown cloud provider capable of competing with the American giants.
🇺🇸 How We Got Here: The EU’s Slow Tech Growth
Europe’s lack of a competitive cloud provider is not an accident. It is the result of deep-rooted business conservatism, strict regulations, and structural disadvantages that have shaped the European tech industry for decades.
One major issue is that European businesses are far more risk-averse than their US counterparts.
American companies thrive on aggressive innovation. European companies tend to move cautiously, prioritising stability over disruption.
Nokia is one of the best examples of how this mindset has hurt European competitiveness. Long before Apple revolutionised the mobile industry, Nokia had already developed the first touchscreen phone in 2004 and the first tablet in 2001. But they never released these products. The leadership team believed the market wasn’t ready, so they played it safe.
A few years later, Apple launched the iPhone and iPad, proving that the market was, in fact, more than ready.
Nokia’s conservatism cost them their place as the dominant mobile phone manufacturer.
The same pattern applies to cloud computing.
In the early 2000s, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft invested billions into cloud infrastructure—years before most businesses even realised they needed it. AWS launched in 2006, Google Cloud in 2008, and Azure in 2010.
These companies were willing to gamble on an unproven market, and that gamble paid off. Today, AWS alone generates more revenue than the entire European cloud industry combined.
European companies, on the other hand, waited. They hesitated to build large-scale cloud services because the market wasn’t fully mature.
And by the time they were ready, the US giants had already established themselves as the default cloud providers. No European competitor has ever been able to catch up.
Regulation is another key factor. The EU prioritises regulation over innovation, which has made it difficult for European tech companies to scale.
GDPR, for example, is an important privacy law, but it also creates enormous compliance costs for startups. US companies can afford massive legal teams to handle these regulations, but smaller European startups struggle with the bureaucracy.
Environmental laws also make it more difficult to build and operate large-scale data centres in Europe compared to the US.
The result is that European cloud companies face higher barriers to entry, while AWS, GCP, and Azure continue to dominate the market with their existing infrastructure.
Another reason Europe never developed a dominant cloud provider is that it lacks the kind of tech giants that could naturally evolve into one.
AWS, for example, was originally built to power Amazon’s e-commerce business. Google Cloud was developed to handle Google’s massive search, YouTube, and advertising infrastructure. Microsoft Azure was created as a natural extension of Windows and Office 365.
These companies had a massive internal demand for cloud computing before they ever offered it to external customers. No European company had a similar starting point.
Without a trillion-dollar tech giant investing in cloud infrastructure for its own operations, Europe never developed a cloud ecosystem that could compete with the US.
📊 What This Means for Companies & Data Engineers
If European companies were to lose access to AWS, GCP, or Azure, the impact would be catastrophic. Businesses would face enormous costs in migrating workloads, and compliance with GDPR and other regulations would make finding alternative solutions even more complex.
There are no easy replacements. Moving on-prem would require massive investment in hardware, networking, and security, while switching to Alibaba Cloud would introduce geopolitical risks.
But for data engineers and analysts, the situation would be even more challenging. Unlike web developers, who can often migrate applications to alternative hosting providers, data professionals rely on cloud-specific managed services that have no direct replacements.
If a company is heavily invested in services like Glue, BigQuery, Fivetran, or Snowflake, switching isn’t just about moving code—it’s about completely rebuilding the entire data infrastructure.
For those looking to go open-source, the options are limited:
✅ Storage: Replace S3 with MinIO.
✅ Data lake/lakehouse: Move from BigQuery to Apache Iceberg or ClickHouse.
✅ ETL pipelines: Replace Fivetran with Meltano or Mage.
✅ Transformation: Swap dbt Cloud for dbt Core or SQLMesh.
✅ BI/visualisation: Move from Sigma to Metabase or Superset.
These are all powerful tools, but they require significant engineering effort to set up, maintain, and scale
Cloud-managed services like Snowflake and Fivetran remove much of the operational complexity, allowing teams to focus on business logic rather than infrastructure. Migrating away from them is a major strategic shift.
☁️ What Data Engineers & Companies Should Do Now
Although there is no immediate threat to cloud services in Europe, companies should start preparing contingency plans.
The first step is to reduce dependency on a single cloud provider. Even if a company wants to remain primarily on AWS, it should explore a multi-cloud strategy to ensure some workloads can run on GCP or Azure if needed.
Another key strategy is adopting open-source tools where possible. While a full migration away from managed cloud services isn’t realistic for most companies, data teams can begin experimenting with open-source alternatives.
Containerisation and infrastructure-as-code can also improve flexibility. Using Terraform to manage cloud resources and Docker with Kubernetes for container orchestration can make it easier to migrate workloads if necessary.
The goal is to build an infrastructure that can adapt to change rather than being locked into a single provider.
Finally, companies need to stay informed. Cloud regulations are evolving, and geopolitical conflicts can escalate unpredictably. Businesses that closely monitor changes in trade policies, cloud regulations, and data sovereignty laws will be better positioned to adapt if major shifts occur.
💭 Final Thoughts
Europe’s cloud crisis is a structural problem caused by business conservatism, regulatory challenges, and a lack of competitive investment in cloud infrastructure.
The US controls Europe’s digital backbone, and unless the EU makes serious changes to foster innovation, that isn’t going to change.
For data engineers, the best course of action is to prepare for uncertainty. The cloud isn’t going away, but the way companies use it may evolve.
Those who plan ahead—by reducing vendor lock-in, exploring open-source alternatives, and maintaining flexibility—will be in the strongest position, no matter what happens next.
Until next time,
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