Take a sovereign cloud offering and graft AI onto it: at SAP, this yields EU AI Cloud.
The sovereign cloud component has been promoted for several years under the brand SAP Sovereign Cloud.
The AI aspect involves integrating generative models into the SAP BTP (Business Technology Platform) offering. This initiative is now expanding to services that sit on top of these models. For example, Mistral AI Studio and Le Chat, or the Cohere North platform.
The “Distributed Cloud” Approach, but from an AI Perspective
Under the EU AI Cloud banner, SAP promises the ability to operate these models and services on sovereign infrastructures at four levels:
- Data (localization)
- Operations (sensitive processing conducted on-site by staff located on-site or in a “trusted country”)
- Technical controls (local governance plans)
- Legal (local entities or those established in “trusted countries”)
Four deployment options are offered: on SAP infrastructure, at the client site (in a managed arrangement), with hyperscalers*… and with Delos Cloud – a subsidiary of the German group – for the public sector.
Depending on the region, not all deployment modes are available. In France, for the moment it is on-site or on SAP’s IaaS. An alternative deployment option is “under evaluation,” we are told.
Licensing and CLOUD Act, a “Sovereign Cloud” that raises questions
The foundations of SAP Sovereign Cloud lie in the NS2 (National Security Services) offering, operated in the United States for about twenty years.
Despite this experience, there is still a long way to go before functional parity between the “sovereign cloud” and the commercial cloud, the head of the SAP Sovereign Cloud offering in the United Kingdom recently admitted.
In France, USF (the professional association of French-speaking SAP users) wonders what on-site deployment will add compared with the previously available SAP CDC offering. It also questions the CLOUD Act risks at the SAP IaaS level. While calling for clarifications on the governance of the Delos Cloud model, which appears closely aligned with Bleu’s future offering.
Its German counterpart – the DSAG – calls for “total transparency” on the content of the services and their availability dates. It also states that licensing in hybrid environments is a crucial issue.
* SAP recently confirmed that the AWS European Sovereign Cloud will be a deployment option. Amazon’s cloud is already offered in Australia and New Zealand (since 2023), in the United Kingdom (2024), as well as in India and Canada (2025).
