Airbus wants to move away from hyperscalers, but doubts whether the European market can deliver what the company needs today.
The French aircraft manufacturer Airbus is preparing to move away from hyperscalers and migrate its mission-critical applications to a digitally independent European cloud. This includes ERP, manufacturing execution systems, CRM and product lifecycle management of aircraft designs.
Pressure from software vendors
According to Catherine Jestin, executive vice president Digital at Airbus, this is not a non-committal choice. “Some of this data is extremely sensitive from a national and European perspective. We need to be sure that it remains under European control.”
The pressure to migrate also comes from software vendors. Platforms such as SAP are increasingly developing new functionality exclusively in the cloud, leaving large industrial customers with hardly any alternative.
80/20 chance
The tender starts in early January and a decision is expected before the summer. The contract is reportedly worth more than 50 million euros and runs for up to 10 years. Yet Jestin wonders in The Register whether European cloud providers have enough scale. She estimates the chance of finding a solution at 80/20.
This uncertainty is closely linked to geopolitics. Since the return of Donald Trump as US president, digital sovereignty has once again become a priority for European companies. Despite initiatives from Microsoft, AWS and Google, concerns remain about the American CLOUD Act, which can force access to data, even when it is in European data centers.