Gaia-X welcomes the EU Cloud and AI Development Act and calls for a practical, trusted path to European digital sovereignty

Brussels, 12 June 2026 — Gaia-X welcomes the European Commission’s proposed Cloud and AI Development Act as an important step toward strengthening Europe’s cloud and AI capacity, competitiveness, resilience, and strategic autonomy. It does so by establishing Cloud and AI Leadership Initiatives, setting a goal to triple EU data-centre capacity within five to seven years, and creating a Union cloud computing sovereignty framework with four assurance levels. This direction is highly relevant for Gaia-X, whose mission is to build transparent, controllable, and interoperable digital ecosystems aligned with European values and capable of reducing dependency on third-country providers and non-EU control points. Statistics show that close to 65% of the global and European cloud market is controlled by three US hyperscalers and 70% of AI foundation models have been developed in the US since 2017, underscoring the strategic importance of Europe’s current cloud and AI policy push. The Cloud and AI Development Act gives Europe the policy direction; Gaia-X provides the practical framework to turn that ambition into operational reality,” stated Ulrich Ahle, CEO of Gaia-X. The future of European AI will depend on Europe’s ability to create trusted, sovereign ecosystems in which organisations can collaborate, innovate and generate value while maintaining control over their data, services and digital assets.