Airbus will move 70 of its most critical applications from AWS to French provider Scaleway, part of a push for digital sovereignty that keeps sensitive data beyond the reach of US law.
Airbus is pulling some of its most sensitive systems off Amazon Web Services and onto a European cloud. The aerospace group has picked French provider Scaleway to host them, Scaleway said .
The move covers the applications Airbus needs to keep running as a “minimum viable company.” That is about 900 apps, starting with 70 now on AWS, The Register reported .
The systems heading to Scaleway include Airbus’s ERP, manufacturing, CRM and product-lifecycle software. They span aircraft design, engineering, manufacturing and enterprise operations.
The goal is to keep that data under European control. The setup “keeps our critical data assets shielded from foreign extraterritorial laws,” said Catherine Jestin, Airbus’s digital chief. Scaleway, owned by France’s iliad Group, won a competitive tender worth more than €50 million over up to 10 years, Techzine reported .
Airbus judged bidders on three fronts: technical strength, operational resilience, and legal safeguards against non-European laws. Jestin said Scaleway offered a strong technical answer at a price that was competitive with the hyperscalers.
The concern driving all this is the US CLOUD Act. It lets American authorities request data held by US firms, even in overseas data centres. Last year a Microsoft executive told a French court, under oath, that the company could not guarantee data sovereignty.
Tensions between the US and Europe have sharpened under a second Trump administration, hardening calls for digital sovereignty . AWS, Microsoft and Google have all launched “sovereign” offerings to reassure European customers.
This is not Airbus abandoning US big tech . It will keep AWS for its Skywise aviation-data platform and a customer-support tool. It also still runs Microsoft and Google productivity suites, plus Salesforce, Coupa and Workday.
“We do not intend to move away from all non-European solutions; we balance our choices based on the criticality of the data,” Jestin said. AWS declined to comment.
The deal is a marquee win for Europe’s sovereign cloud ambitions. It signals a wider European push to lean less on American infrastructure. Scaleway chief Damien Lucas called it proof that Europe can deliver sovereign cloud “at the highest international standards.”
I am the Editor in Chief for TNW, covering technology not as a parade of launches and valuations, but as a system of influence, persuasion, (show all) I am the Editor in Chief for TNW, covering technology not as a parade of launches and valuations, but as a system of influence, persuasion, and change. I write about startups, venture capital, digital policy, and Europe ecosystem, with an eye on the larger story beneath them: who gets to build the future, who profits from it, and how Europe is learning to speak in a louder voice of its own. Before moving into senior editorial leadership, I've built my career for over +10 years across journalism, storytelling, content strategy, SEO, and digital publishing, with experience in SaaS, hospitality, art, and culture.