Sovereign cloud is only possible if you're Chinese or American: Gartner

"“It’s not possible to operate a completely sovereign cloud outside of China or the USA,” according to Douglas Toombs, a VP analyst at Gartner. “Only the US and China make all the tech needed for a sovereign cloud. Buyers elsewhere can’t avoid relationships with foreign providers.”"

"Toombs said that while US-based cloud vendors have created products they say can meet the needs of organizations that need a cloud that doesn’t have legal entanglements outside their chosen jurisdiction, the fact they're ultimately owned by American corporations means it's not possible to be certain a cloud provider can promise complete sovereignty. Even on-prem clouds like AWS Outposts, Azure Local, or Oracle's Dedicated Cloud Regions, “need to phone home,” he said."

"The analyst doesn't think attempts to create sovereign clouds will succeed. He mentioned past French attempts to create sovereign clouds named “Andromeda”, “Numergy,” and “Gaia-X”, which he says went nowhere - but did produce some nice white papers. He also cited the The Rule of Three and Four, a maxim developed by Boston Consulting Group that asserts “A stable competitive market never has more than three significant competitors, the largest of which has no more than four times the market share of the smallest,” and argued that it predicts the cloud market has settled around AWS, Google, and Microsoft."

"Toombs allowed that some smaller clouds could thrive and will make it feasible to create sovereign SaaS providers and products. But he thinks that even aggressive moves to go on-prem won't free organizations from dependency on US-owned clouds, an assertion he backed with the example of a Dutch healthcare provider that tried to build its own infrastructure but then experience"

A completely sovereign cloud is not achievable outside China or the USA because only those countries produce all required technology. Organizations elsewhere cannot avoid relationships with foreign providers. US cloud vendors offer products intended to meet jurisdictional requirements, but ownership by American corporations prevents certainty about complete sovereignty. Even on-prem cloud offerings such as AWS Outposts, Azure Local, and Oracle Dedicated Cloud Regions require outbound connectivity. Efforts to build sovereign clouds have struggled, including past French initiatives that produced limited results. Market dynamics are expected to concentrate cloud power around AWS, Google, and Microsoft, though smaller clouds may still succeed and enable sovereign SaaS offerings.

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