Sovereign cloud and AI in Germany and France: rules and plans, 2026

Germany and France both want AI and cloud services that Europe controls, but they use different tools today. France qualifies services under SecNumCloud, which limits non-European ownership and is now written into law for sensitive state data. Germany's C5 is an audit baseline with no sovereignty criteria. The EU's June 2026 proposal would add four assurance levels, but it is not law yet.

This article explains what each instrument says, where the sources disagree, and what a buyer can reasonably ask a provider. It is a plain-language guide, not legal advice. Every figure is labelled with its source and date, and points that official texts do not yet settle are flagged as open.

Key numbers at a glance

• Market share of EU cloud providers in Europe: 29% in 2017, 15% in 2022, and stagnant since (European Commission, explanatory memorandum to the Cloud and AI Development Act proposal, 3 June 2026).
• Share of the European cloud market held by three non-EU hyperscalers: over 70% (same document).
• The proposal: COM(2026) 502 final, dated 3 June 2026, a regulation that would apply across the EU if adopted.
• Proposed EU data centre capacity goal: at least triple in five to seven years, and meet needs by 2035 (same document).
• Proposed permitting limit inside data centre acceleration zones: 12 months from a complete application (Article 13, same document).
• Proposed aim for 2030: all permits to build and run a data centre in under 18 months across the EU (same document).
• Proposed sovereignty framework: four assurance levels, with level 1 as the minimum baseline for public buyers (Articles 16 and 30).
• Example weighting for European added value in a public tender: up to 15 out of 120 points, described as something authorities could consider (recital 67).
• SecNumCloud ownership caps: non-EU entities may hold no more than 24% of capital and voting rights individually and 39% collectively (Génération NT, 9 March 2026).
• France, decree no. 2026-272 of 14 April 2026: makes the use of SecNumCloud qualified providers for certain sensitive state data legally binding (Localtis, Banque des Territoires, 16 April 2026).
• France, order of 12 August 2026: approves version 3.2 of the cloud provider requirements framework (Landot Avocats, 17 August 2026).
• France, DINUM seminar of 8 April 2026: ministries and state operators must produce plans to reduce non-European digital dependencies by autumn 2026 (Localtis, 13 April 2026).
• C5: first published by Germany's BSI in 2016, revised in 2025 and 2026, with over a hundred attestations granted according to the BSI page.
• Deutsche Telekom and Nvidia Industrial AI Cloud in Munich: up to 10,000 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs, over one billion euros, privately funded, reported 4 November 2025 (The Decoder).
• EU AI Gigafactories call: up to seven facilities, applications due 12 November 2026 (EuroHPC Joint Undertaking).

Terms in plain language

Data residency means where data is stored. Data sovereignty is about who holds legal power over the data and the service, which can differ from where the servers sit. A provider headquartered outside the EU can run a data centre in Frankfurt, and the data may still be reachable under foreign law. The article on data residency, sovereignty and localisation gives the longer version.

Extraterritorial law is a law one country applies to people or companies outside its borders, for example by ordering a company to hand over data it holds abroad. Hyperscaler means a very large cloud provider. An attestation is an independent auditor's written conclusion about a provider's controls. A qualification is a government agency's formal approval of a service against stated criteria. Adequacy decision is the European Commission's finding that a non-EU country gives personal data an essentially equivalent level of protection. EUCS is the planned European cybersecurity certification scheme for cloud services, which French texts treat as a possible equivalent to SecNumCloud.

Why Europe is pushing now

The Commission's own explanatory text is blunt about the reason. It says the lack of data centre capacity in the EU forces European enterprises to route critical workloads through foreign hyperscaler infrastructure, and that large incumbents are subject to third country laws that can compel data access. It also states that the market share of EU cloud providers fell from 29% in 2017 to 15% in 2022 and has stayed flat since, and that three non-EU hyperscalers control over 70% of the European market.

Those are the Commission's figures in a policy document that argues for a law, so read them as the case being made, not as an independent audit of the market. The direction is still clear. Governments and large buyers in Germany and France increasingly ask who controls a service, not only where it runs.

France: SecNumCloud

France's approach is a state qualification. SecNumCloud is issued by ANSSI, the national cybersecurity agency, and applies to a specific cloud service rather than a whole company. The current version, 3.2, dates from March 2022 (Localtis, 16 April 2026).

The notable feature is the ownership test. Génération NT reported on 9 March 2026 that, to qualify, non-EU third parties may hold no more than 24% of the provider's capital and voting rights individually and no more than 39% collectively. Those outside entities also may not hold a veto or appoint a majority of the provider's management body, and the provider's head office and technical infrastructure must be in Europe. The same report says the aim is to keep hosted data out of reach of orders from non-European states, naming laws such as the US CLOUD Act and FISA.

What changed in 2026 is the legal weight. Until this year, the obligation for the state to use qualified providers rested on government circulars. Article 31 of France's 2024 SREN law (the law to secure and regulate the digital space) extended hosting requirements for sensitive data, and decree no. 2026-272 of 14 April 2026 made that obligation enforceable, according to Localtis on 16 April 2026. The decree applies to the state, its operators and six named public interest groupings, including the Agence du numérique en santé and the social declarations body GIP MDS.

The decree also defines which data count. Localtis reports two cumulative tests. The data must be particularly sensitive, either because a law protects it (such as defence, medical or business secrets) or because the state needs it for essential missions. And a breach must be likely to cause concrete, serious harm to public order, public security, health, life or intellectual property. Localtis gives examples: public employee payroll and emergency alert chains are in scope, while the land register and student grades are not. Projects that started earlier with a non-compliant provider get up to 18 months to migrate where a compliant offer exists in France; otherwise a one year derogation applies, renewable until one exists.

The final step came in August. The law firm Landot Avocats reported on 17 August 2026 that an order dated 12 August 2026 approves the requirements framework for cloud providers in version 3.2. It adds that compliance can be shown either by an ANSSI qualification or by an EU or EEA certification that ANSSI recognises as equivalent. Secondary reports differ on the exact publication date in the Journal officiel, so check Légifrance for the date that applies to a contract.

Localtis put the number of qualified providers at about ten in April 2026. ANSSI keeps the official list, and that list is the one to rely on.

France also acts through its own administration. On 8 April 2026 the inter-ministerial digital directorate, DINUM, held a seminar with the DGE, ANSSI and the state purchasing directorate to set a strategy for reducing reliance on non-European digital tools, Localtis reported on 13 April 2026. It named seven priority areas: workstations, collaboration tools, antivirus, artificial intelligence, databases, virtualisation and network equipment. Ministries and state operators must each produce an action plan by autumn 2026. DINUM said it would move its own workstations from Windows to Linux; Localtis notes the directorate has about 250 staff, so this is a pilot inside one body, not a government wide switch.

Germany: C5 and the sovereign AI cloud plan

Germany's main cloud instrument, C5, works differently. The Cloud Computing Compliance Criteria Catalogue was first published by the BSI, the federal cybersecurity agency, in 2016. The BSI describes it as setting minimum requirements for secure cloud computing, aimed at providers, auditors and customers. Providers implement the criteria and have auditors examine them. Customers should order the report, analyse it and repeat that yearly. The BSI states that customers must decide whether the baseline is enough and carry any residual risk. The page lists both C5:2026 and C5:2020 and says the catalogue was completely revised in 2025 and 2026. It reports over a hundred attestations granted.

The page does not mention sovereignty criteria. That is the key difference from SecNumCloud. C5 tells you how a provider's security controls were examined. It does not by itself tell you who owns the provider or which country's law can reach the data. A global provider can hold a C5 attestation. For a deeper explanation, see the guide to what C5 is and when a German buyer asks for it.

On the policy side, the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and State Modernisation says its AI development should be "sovereign and independent of global monopolies" and that a sovereign AI cloud base platform was tendered in 2025 as a central element of the Deutschland-Stack, the federal plan for a shared digital stack for public administration. The ministry page lists no budget and names no provider, so the winner and the cost of that tender are not public on that page.

The contrast with France is worth stating plainly. France has put ownership limits into a binding rule for a defined set of sensitive public data. Germany, in the sources cited here, relies on a security audit standard plus procurement plans, without a published ownership test.

The EU proposal: four levels and a public buyer rule

On 3 June 2026 the Commission published its proposal for a Cloud and AI Development Act. The proposal would do three things.

It would speed up data centres. The Commission aims to at least triple EU capacity in five to seven years and to reach needed capacity by 2035. Member States would designate data centre acceleration zones. Inside a zone, an aggregated baseline permit would cover permits commonly required, and the permit decision would take no more than 12 months from a complete application. The proposal also states an aim that by 2030 operators can obtain all permits to build and run a data centre in under 18 months across the EU, including access to land, energy and connectivity. States would also have to set up single information points for operators. These are proposals. The ITdaily report from 9 June 2026 notes that negotiations with Parliament and Council are only starting and that it is unclear where the investment will come from.

It would define four assurance levels for cloud services. The proposal sets out a Union cloud computing sovereignty framework with four levels, called Union assurance levels, with criteria in an annex. Level 1 is demonstrated by the provider's own conformity self-assessment, based on documented evidence and monitoring, and small and medium enterprise providers would see their statement recognised across Member States without a separate recognition step. Levels 2, 3 and 4 require an independent third party audit at the provider's expense, and an audit at a higher level must also satisfy every criterion of the lower levels. A provider applies for recognition to the national authority where it is established, and the Commission would keep a central repository of recognised services.

The detailed criteria for each level sit in the annex, and the copy of the proposal used here does not reproduce that annex in readable form, so this article does not describe what level 3 or 4 demands. The recitals say most public services would not need the highest levels, and that levels 3 or 4 may be necessary in specific cases to preserve public order.

It would set rules for public buyers. Article 30 would require contracting authorities to procure at least level 1. Where a Member State risk assessment finds that an activity has public order relevance, the authority must use only services recognised at levels 2, 3 or 4. Member States would carry out those risk assessments under Article 29. The proposal also says authorities could consider a European added value criterion in tenders, with a maximum weighting of 15 out of 120 points given as an example, kept subordinate to technical and financial criteria. It states that Member States should aspire to award at least 25% of relevant cloud and AI innovation procurement procedures to small and medium enterprises.

One provision speaks directly to the foreign provider question. Article 18 lets the Commission decide that providers controlled from a particular non-EU country may be audited against level 3, but only if that country meets cumulative tests. It must have an adequacy decision under the GDPR, no measures that let it exercise control over the provider in a way that conflicts with the EU data access rules, and no measures to compel the provider to degrade or disrupt service, among further conditions. So the proposal does not simply ban non-EU providers. It sets conditions, and the outcome would depend on future Commission decisions.

How the three instruments compare

• Who runs it. SecNumCloud is a French agency qualification, now backed by a 2026 decree and order for sensitive state data. C5 is a German agency audit catalogue with attestations by auditors. The EU proposal would be a regulation with recognition by national authorities.
• What it tests. SecNumCloud tests security and ownership and control. C5 tests security controls. The proposal tests a layered set of sovereignty criteria set out in an annex.
• Who must use it. In France, the state, its operators and six named public groupings must use qualified or equivalent services for sensitive data. C5 is not a blanket legal requirement for every buyer on the BSI's own description. The proposal would bind public buyers across the EU once adopted and applied.
• Where it stands. SecNumCloud and C5 exist today. The proposal is a proposal.

The ITdaily article adds a caution about the Commission's earlier Cloud Sovereignty Framework, which used 18 criteria. It reports that the cloud trade group CISPE criticised the framework, arguing that large US providers could easily score well, and that Gaia-X's top label requires EU headquarters. The article also warns that offerings that are sovereign in name only would undermine the goal. Whether that criticism applies to the new proposal is a question for the final text.

AI compute: where sovereignty meets chips

Cloud rules matter for AI because training and running models needs large clusters. Two German and French examples show the pattern. Deutsche Telekom and Nvidia announced an Industrial AI Cloud in Munich with up to 10,000 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs and a value of over one billion euros. The Decoder reported on 4 November 2025 that Telekom says it will raise Germany's AI computing power by 50%, which is a company statement. It is privately funded and separate from EU gigafactory funding.

In France, Euronews reported on 8 September 2026 that Mistral raised 3 billion euros and that its chief executive said Mistral is already spending 4 billion euros on data centres across France and Europe. Euronews also reports that Microsoft agreed to fund capacity from its European network, which uses thousands of Nvidia chips. That is a reminder that even a European model developer depends on US chip makers and, in part, US cloud capacity. Sovereignty here is a spectrum, not a switch. For more on those projects, see Mistral and sovereign AI compute and the overview of Europe's AI infrastructure in 2026.

The EuroHPC call for AI Gigafactories closes on 12 November 2026, with selection expected in early 2027. The call page names no site in Germany or France. The AI gigafactories call explainer covers the lots and funding.

What is firm and what is uncertain

Firm, because the text or official page is public:

• The content of the Commission's proposal as published on 3 June 2026. The text is a proposal and may change.
• The BSI's description of C5 and the EuroHPC call details.

Reasonably supported but secondary:

• SecNumCloud's 24% and 39% ownership caps, reported by Génération NT rather than taken from the ANSSI framework text.
• France's April 2026 decree and its scope, and the DINUM plan, both reported by Localtis.
• The 12 August 2026 order approving version 3.2, reported by a law firm; reports differ on its Journal officiel date.
• The Telekom and Mistral details, which come from news reports and company statements.

Uncertain or not confirmed:

• The criteria for each of the four EU assurance levels, which sit in the proposal's annex.
• Whether and in what form Parliament and Council will adopt the proposal, and when it would apply.
• Who won Germany's sovereign AI cloud tender, and its cost.
• How the French rules will interact with EUCS if that scheme is adopted with or without a "high plus" level, which Localtis describes as still under negotiation.

What to watch next

• 12 November 2026. Gigafactory applications close.
• Parliament and Council positions. Their first readings of the proposal will show whether the assurance levels, the 12 month permit limit and the public buyer rule survive.
• The annex. The criteria for levels 2 to 4 are where the real meaning of sovereign will sit.
• France's autumn 2026 deadline. Whether ministries publish their plans for removing non-European dependencies, and whether derogation decisions under the April decree are made public as required.
• A possible extension in France. Localtis reports a parliamentary bill that would extend SecNumCloud obligations to larger local authorities; it was awaiting debate in April 2026.
• The next C5 update. The BSI lists both C5:2026 and C5:2020, so expect a transition period for existing attestations.

What this means for buyers and software teams

Ask three questions of any provider that markets itself as sovereign. Who owns and controls the company, and does any single outside owner exceed the SecNumCloud style limits? Which attestations or qualifications cover the specific service you will use, not just the company? And where are keys, support staff and backups, not only servers, located and controlled? The checklist on key custody for EU data goes deeper on the last one.

Software teams also need to know what code runs where; Safeguard offers SBOM and dependency scanning, with a free scan at https://gold.safeguard.sh/scan.

Quick check

Sources

• European Commission, Cloud and AI Development Act proposal COM(2026) 502, 3 June 2026 (copy hosted by the Dutch Eerste Kamer): https://www.eerstekamer.nl/nonav/bijlage/20260609/com_2026_502_proposal_for_a/document3/f=/vmy8optarooc.pdf
• ITdaily, 9 June 2026: https://itdaily.com/blogs/cloud/eu-aims-to-triple-data-center-capacity-by-2033-but-is-the-plan-enough/
• Génération NT, SecNumCloud requirements, 9 March 2026: https://www.generation-nt.com/actualites/secnumcloud-referentiel-anssi-securite-souverainete-2071995
• Localtis, Banque des Territoires, SecNumCloud decree and six GIP, 16 April 2026: https://www.banquedesterritoires.fr/secnumcloud-6-gip-assujettis-les-donnees-sensibles-enfin-definies
• Localtis, Banque des Territoires, DINUM plan to reduce digital dependencies, 13 April 2026: https://www.banquedesterritoires.fr/la-dinum-chargee-de-coordonner-un-plan-de-reduction-des-dependances-numeriques
• Landot Avocats, order of 12 August 2026 approving the cloud provider requirements framework, 17 August 2026: https://blog.landot-avocats.net/2026/08/17/important-notamment-pour-certains-marches-publics-evolution-du-referentiel-dexigences-relatif-aux-prestataires-de-services-dinformatique-en-nuage/
• BSI, Cloud Computing Compliance Criteria Catalogue (C5): https://www.bsi.bund.de/EN/Themen/Unternehmen-und-Organisationen/Informationen-und-Empfehlungen/Empfehlungen-nach-Angriffszielen/Cloud-Computing/Kriterienkatalog-C5/kriterienkatalog-c5_node.html
• Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and State Modernisation, artificial intelligence topic page: https://bmds.bund.de/en/topics/artificial-intelligence
• The Decoder, Deutsche Telekom and Nvidia, 4 November 2025: https://the-decoder.com/10000-nvidia-blackwell-gpus-set-to-increase-germanys-ai-capacity-by-50-percent/
• Euronews, Mistral Series D, 8 September 2026: https://www.euronews.com/2026/09/08/mistral-ai-raises-record-3-billion-in-samsung-led-funding-round
• EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, AI Gigafactories call, 30 July 2026: https://eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/eurohpc-joint-undertaking-launches-ai-gigafactories-call-2026-07-30_en

Last reviewed: 19 October 2026.