French digital sovereignty is also built through its infrastructure. Today, a significant share of the sensitive and strategic data belonging to our businesses and public services is hosted in environments that are, for some, subject to extraterritorial legislation.
Moreover, 63% of local authorities still host their data in-house, often in infrastructures weakened by age. They bear not only the operating and maintenance costs but also the growing regulatory demands in terms of security and compliance.
This paradox reveals a structural fragility: between reliance on foreign actors and locally hosted infrastructures that are not adequately modernized, control over our data remains uncertain. Data centers are pillars of the digital transition for territories.
They have become critical infrastructures, on par with energy and transport. Yet the public debate consistently places them in a secondary role, a position that harms economic and territorial resilience.
The Proximity Data Center: An Effective, Sovereign Model Tailored to the Needs of Organizations
Proximity data centers are locally anchored infrastructures, sized to meet specific needs and fully integrated into the digital ecosystem of the territories.
Organizations are increasingly turning to hybrid offerings, tailored to usage: local hosting in a defined and controlled site at optimized costs; and the use of cloud for routine services.
The clear identification of data hosting under European control provides better oversight of the legal framework and the responsibilities and actors involved. This is a key issue for public actors and organizations that hold and process sensitive data, including users’ data, on a daily basis.
In this context, proximity data centers ensure tighter control over the infrastructure in operation and constitute concrete protection against extraterritorial regulations and dependencies tied to certain foreign digital services.
Environmentally, proximity data centers offer additional opportunities such as better integration into the territorial network and thus facilitate the recovery of waste heat for projects led by local authorities. Moreover, they distribute resource consumption (water, energy) across the territory and stand in contrast to mega data centers that concentrate heavy usage in a single location and can provoke competing demands for land use.
Ultimately, they strengthen the economic attractiveness of territories by creating local digital infrastructures that underpin innovation ecosystems and the skilled jobs associated with them.
A Strategic Opportunity for Public and Private Sector Stakeholders
The public sector has the opportunity to pool infrastructures, notably for hosting sensitive data, in order to offer smaller organizations an alternative to non-European offerings.
Indeed, these actors often struggle to navigate the profusion of available offerings, to gain leverage in contractual and pricing negotiations, and are subjected to the legislations applicable to their data. Pooling with a trusted operator thus enables municipalities and businesses to secure a local, reliable, and cost-controlled solution.
There are several configurations possible depending on territorial specifics. The Proximity Datacenter Guide lists several. Public-private partnerships play a pivotal role in securing investments and ensuring the durability of infrastructures, whether through co-construction, co-financing, or delegated operation and maintenance of projects.
Proximity data centers are foundational components of local public policies today. A balanced vision that combines trusted solutions: centralized cloud, edge computing, and proximity infrastructures should be promoted to build a sovereign, more robust and sustainable digital offering.
Ultimately, maintaining the economic autonomy and digital sovereignty of territories rests on a coherent territorial network, supported jointly by businesses, local authorities, operators, and the state, ensuring resilience and performance.
*Ilham Djehaich is President of InfraNum
*Antoine Fournier is President of Thésée Datacenter
