Harald A. Summa, CEO of DE-CIX along with 26 CEOs of leading European IT and tech companies, presented a roadmap to the European Commission in order to reinforce Europe’s leadership in cloud and edge technologies. The EU Commissioner, Thierry Breton was introduced to this roadmap on May 7, 2021. DE-CIX and other contributing authors from companies such as Airbus, Amadeus, Atos, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Ionos, Nokia, Orange, OVHCloud, SAP, Schneider Electric, Siemens, Telefónica, and Telecom Italia focused on content, like public-private technical investments through to 2025 and agreed the strategic technology roadmap is part of the planned “Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge and Cloud”
Through European cloud and edge landscape perspectives, all CEOs agree that world-class service must be delivered at all levels. “We are proud to have been involved in the creation of the roadmap and are ready to play a key role in strengthening cloud and edge infrastructure in Europe,” said Harald A. Summa, CEO of DE-CIX. Unified secure and powerful networked infrastructure is a pivotal goal, along with a “highly secure, low-carbon, resource-efficient and interoperable cloud and edge ecosystem.” All of the contributors aim to enable world-leading data-driven innovation across all industries, anchored in the European User Requirements.
The EU has prioritized investment efforts in three pillars:
- Becoming the leader in domains that will shape European cloud and edge offerings on the global market, focusing on climate-neutrality, cybersecurity, trustworthy data exchange and interoperability.
- Renewing and expanding infrastructure foundations across Europe, including an increased density of edge and cloud facilities across the continent, backed by network and interconnectivity services that will enable innovative use cases at scale.
- Enabling sovereign and sector-specific services to end-users, providing businesses with trusted options that match global standards in terms of price and resilience.
“The European Data Strategy aims to promote a European offering of low-carbon and trusted edge and cloud infrastructures and services that meet the specific needs of EU industry and the public sector. On May 5, the European Commission updated its European Industrial Strategy and announced the launch of the Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge, and Cloud for the second quarter of 2021.The European Digital Decade sets ambitious goals to be achieved by 2030, including the deployment of 10,000 carbon-neutral, highly secure edge nodes and a 75% adoption rate of advanced cloud services for European enterprises.” 1 Measurement based on the total amount of data throughput in 2020: 25 Exabytes (EB)
For more information about how you can access the European Data Strategy roadmap please visit
