The conversation around cloud in Europe is quietly evolving so that where the early focus was on innovation and agility, the attention is now turning towards control, accountability and resilience. The growing interest in sovereign cloud and, in some cases, the return of workloads to on-premise infrastructure reflect this shift.
Sovereign cloud isn't new, but recent developments have pushed it firmly back into the spotlight. At the heart of it is a desire for greater autonomy, particularly in how and where data and assets are handled. For some, it's a regulatory requirement and for others it's about strategic assurance.
Part of this shift is driven by regulation, such as DORA, which came into effect in January 2025, and raises the bar for operational resilience across the financial sector. It puts responsibility onto the regulated entity, not the cloud provider, to demonstrate end-to-end control, including over third-party services. That means being able to explain where your assets and data sit, how it's protected, and how you would respond if the CSP experienced an outage.
It is not just legislation though, there is a broader unease around concentration risk and the exploration of Sovereign cloud is as much about operational continuity as it is about compliance.
With a small number of hyperscale providers dominating the European market, many leaders are asking what happens if the provider changes terms, suffers a failure, or is impacted by external regulatory or policy changes.
At the same time, we are seeing a quiet return of certain workloads back to on-premise environments. Not because the cloud has failed, but because the context has changed. In some cases, what was once seen as a good fit for cloud has turned out to be more expensive, more complex, or more exposed than expected. Repatriation doesn't mean abandoning cloud, it means making more deliberate decisions about what belongs where, based on the needs of the business.
Europe's cloud strategy is no longer just about where workloads run. It's about trust, resilience and accountability. For some organisations that will mean embracing sovereign cloud. For others, it may involve re-balancing their approach entirely. Either way, the direction is set and cloud strategy is now as much about control as it is about capability.