Airbus is pulling 70 of its most critical applications off Amazon Web Services. The aerospace giant is shifting them to Scaleway, a French cloud provider owned by iliad Group. This move covers about 900 applications total, including ERP, manufacturing, CRM, and product lifecycle software.
The contract is worth over €50 million and could last up to 10 years. The goal is clear: keep sensitive data inside European borders. Catherine Jestin, Airbus’ chief data officer, said the setup “keeps our critical data assets shielded from foreign extraterritorial laws.”
Airbus will still use some U.S.-based cloud services. AWS remains for its Skywise platform. Microsoft and Google productivity tools, Salesforce, Coupa, and Workday also stay. The shift isn’t about abandoning U.S. providers—it’s about controlling what’s most sensitive.
Meanwhile, Airbus is deepening ties with China. China Eastern recently ordered 25 A330neo jets, valued at $9.35 billion. This follows another order just three months earlier. The A330neo competes where China’s own Comac has no offering. Airbus dominates China’s market with 55 percent share last year and has assembled over 780 A320s in Tianjin since 2008.
The move to a French cloud fits a broader European push for tech sovereignty. Nordic companies are adopting private and hybrid clouds with AI-ready capacity, local data residency, and low-carbon footprints. The 2026 ISG Provider Lens report calls the Nordic region a backbone for European data processing.
Europe isn’t stopping at cloud infrastructure. The EU recently imposed new rules on Google to share anonymized search data with rivals starting January 2027. It also opened Android to competing AI companies. Henna Virkkunen, European Commission executive vice president, said these steps aim to foster innovation and user choice.
Google’s Kent Walker pushed back, warning these rules could “weaken privacy and security protections.” He cautioned that exposing Europeans’ private searches to unfamiliar companies risks privacy violations, trade secrets, and national security.
Global shifts in AI are also underway. Businesses are moving from U.S. proprietary AI models to cheaper Chinese open-weight alternatives. Since mid-June, the daily token volume of Zhipu’s GLM-5.2 surged 50-fold on Vercel’s AI Gateway platform. Open-weight models now account for 29 percent of token volume there—tripling since April.
Airbus’ cloud migration and China’s aircraft orders highlight a clear geopolitical pattern. Technology and aerospace are arenas for sovereignty and strategic competition. Europe wants control over its data. China wants a foothold in commercial aviation. And global AI is rewriting the rules on where innovation happens and who owns the data.
Based on
- Airbus is moving its most critical apps off AWS to a French cloud — thenextweb.com
- Opinion | EU isn’t just selling aircraft to China. It’s helping strengthen a competitor | South China Morning Post — scmp.com
- Nordic Firms Seek Green, Sovereign AI Infrastructure | AP News — apnews.com
- EU forces Google to share search data and open Android to rival AI companies | The Independent — independent.co.uk
- As US AI costs soar, global businesses pivot to China’s low-cost, open-weight models | South China Morning Post — scmp.com
