Frankfurt am Main, 10 May 2021: Harald A. Summa, CEO of DE-CIX (operator of the world’s largest Internet Exchange1 in Frankfurt) is one of 27 CEOs of leading European IT and tech companies who have presented a roadmap to the European Commission to strengthen Europe’s leadership in cloud and edge technologies. On May 7, 2021, the roadmap was presented to EU Commissioner Thierry Breton. The content outlines the necessary public-private technical investments through to 2025. In addition to DE-CIX, the authors include companies such as Airbus, Amadeus, Atos, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Ionos, Nokia, Orange, OVHCloud, SAP, Schneider Electric, Siemens, Telefónica, and Telecom Italia. It was agreed to further elaborate the strategic technology roadmap as part of the planned “Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge and Cloud”. DE-CIX will contribute its core competence as a leading operator of Internet Exchanges and home to the world’s largest neutral interconnection ecosystem.
“The European cloud and edge landscape must deliver world-class services at all levels. Therefore, a federated, secure and powerful networked infrastructure is critical. We are proud to have been involved in the creation of the roadmap and are ready to play a key role in strengthening cloud and edge infrastructure in Europe,” said Harald A. Summa, CEO of DE-CIX.
The goal is to jointly promote a highly secure, low-carbon, resource-efficient and interoperable cloud and edge ecosystem. The recommendations, anchored in the European User Requirements, aim to enable world-leading data-driven innovation across all industries.
Prioritized areas for EU investment efforts, in three pillars:
- Becoming the leader in domains that will shape European cloud and edge offerings on the global market, focusing on climate-neutrality, cybersecurity, trustworthy data exchange and interoperability.
- Renewing and expanding infrastructure foundations across Europe, including an increased density of edge and cloud facilities across the continent, backed by network and interconnectivity services that will enable innovative use cases at scale.
- Enabling sovereign and sector-specific services to end-users, providing businesses with trusted options that match global standards in terms of price and resilience.
On May 5, the European Commission updated its European Industrial Strategy and announced the launch of the Alliance for Industrial Data, Edge and Cloud for the second quarter of 2021. The European Data Strategy aims to promote a European offering of low-carbon and trusted edge and cloud infrastructures and services that meet the specific needs of EU industry and the public sector. The European Digital Decade sets ambitious goals to be achieved by 2030, including the deployment of 10,000 carbon-neutral, highly secure edge nodes and a 75% adoption rate of advanced cloud services for European enterprises.
1 Measurement based on the total amount of data throughput in 2020: 25 Exabytes (EB)