Digital Euro Bets on European Cloud, Locks Out AWS and Azure

OVHcloud and Scaleway will provide the cloud infrastructure for the European Central Bank's digital euro payment system. The selection, announced last week, came with an explicit restriction: only companies headquartered in the EU were eligible to apply. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google never had a chance.

The two French cloud providers were chosen as subcontractors under Senacor, the company building the SEPI (Secure Exchange of Payment Information) component. SEPI is the backbone that will handle the exchange of payment data between banks, merchants, and end users when Europeans eventually use the digital euro for everyday transactions.

Sovereignty Written Into Procurement

This isn't a symbolic gesture. The ECB designed the procurement process specifically to ensure "the European autonomy of the project," according to official documentation. The reasoning is straightforward: critical financial infrastructure cannot depend on providers subject to the US CLOUD Act, which allows American authorities to demand access to data held by US companies, regardless of where it's stored.

Steve Brazier, Informa Fellow and Canapii co-founder, described the move as "sovereignty written into procurement policy." Roy Illsley, chief analyst at Omdia, said "Europe is beginning to get their act together," though he added that it "may be too little too late" given how heavily the broader cloud market has already consolidated around US providers.

That consolidation is the backdrop. American hyperscalers control roughly 70% of the European cloud market. European providers, including OVHcloud, Scaleway, and Hetzner, hold a combined share of about 15%. (For a look at why that dependency creates real risk, see the recent Europa.eu breach.) The digital euro contract won't change those numbers. But it establishes a template for how EU institutions can structure procurement when sovereignty is a genuine requirement, not just a talking point.

What Comes Next

If regulators approve the digital euro framework during 2026, the currency could launch around 2029. That timeline gives European cloud providers several years of guaranteed, high-profile infrastructure work, with the ECB effectively vouching for their ability to handle mission-critical financial systems.

The timing also aligns with CISPE's push for the Cloud and AI Development Act to define sovereignty by operational control, not mere EU presence. Just two weeks ago, 25 European cloud CEOs signed an open letter warning the Commission against "sovereignty washing," where US hyperscalers set up EU subsidiaries without actually escaping American legal jurisdiction.

Why This Matters

European cloud providers now have an ECB reference contract. Enterprises evaluating their own cloud strategy have a signal that EU institutions are willing to pay the switching cost for genuine sovereignty. If the ECB trusts OVHcloud and Scaleway to run payment infrastructure for 350 million potential users, the "European cloud isn't enterprise-ready" argument gets harder to make.

The digital euro may still be years from your wallet. The procurement precedent it sets is already here.

Sources

• The Register: US cloud giants not invited to Euro digital dosh project
• CISPE: Cloud CEOs joint letter on sovereignty (March 17, 2026)