Airbus Ditches AWS for Sovereign Cloud: Inside the Scaleway Deal and Europe's Digital Sovereignty Push

AI integration: The cloud infrastructure will support the deployment of AI tools developed with French AI startup Mistral for use cases in aircraft design, engineering, and production . Airbus Chief said, "The fact that the Mistral models are already deployed on Scaleway infrastructure will allow us to accelerate our AI approach" .

Timeline: The migration of the 70 priority applications is planned to reach completion by 2028 .

Competitive process: The contract was awarded through a formal competitive tender for "Trusted Cloud" services. Airbus launched the tender at the start of 2026, evaluated ten candidates, and Scaleway won on three criteria: technological/AI capabilities, operational excellence, and legal and governance guarantees .

Nature of data: The agreement covers Airbus's "most sensitive data," including intellectual property and defence-related information .

Significance and strategic rationale

Sovereign cloud, not just any cloud: Scaleway operates fully European-owned infrastructure, meaning data stays under European jurisdiction and is not subject to US laws like the Cloud Act — a decisive factor for a company that handles dual-use (civil/military) technologies . Airbus described the move as keeping its data "under European control" .

Breaking from US hyperscalers: Airbus had previously relied heavily on AWS. This deal represents a direct shift away from American cloud dominance for the company's crown-jewel workloads . The Register notes this move was "exclusively revealed" by them in December 2025 .

Enabler for AI at scale: The Scaleway-Mistral-Airbus triangle ties sovereign cloud infrastructure to European-owned AI models, creating a vertically integrated European alternative to US-dominated cloud-AI stacks . Catherine Jestin, an Airbus executive, posted on LinkedIn that the deal follows recent choices of Ericsson for Private 5G, Bull for supercomputing, and Mistral for AI, calling it "a new milestone in Airbus’ broader commitment to European digital sovereignty" .

Broader push for European digital sovereignty in aerospace and defence

A bellwether for the sector: Airbus is Europe's largest aerospace and defence company. Its decision to pull sensitive workloads from US cloud providers sets a powerful precedent for other European defence primes, signalling that sovereign cloud is now operationally viable for mission-critical systems .

Regulatory tailwind: The deal aligns with France's and the EU's push for "cloud de confiance" (trusted cloud) frameworks, including France's SecNumCloud qualification and the broader European Data Strategy, which aim to reduce reliance on non-European cloud providers for sensitive data .

Resilience and supply-chain security: By hosting defence and dual-use applications on European-controlled infrastructure, Airbus reduces geopolitical risk — particularly exposure to US extraterritorial data-access laws or potential sanctions-driven disruptions .

Scaleway's strategic lift: For Scaleway, winning Airbus validates it as a credible sovereign alternative to AWS, Azure, and GCP for the most demanding industrial and defence customers, potentially unlocking further contracts across European critical infrastructure . Scaleway was earlier selected by the European Commission to deliver a sovereign public cloud and AI platform to EU institutions . The contract also builds on Scaleway's role as a provider for French health data storage .

Key takeaways

• 70 critical applications moving from AWS to Scaleway, completing by 2028.
• 900 applications in total kept under European control.
• AI integration with French startup Mistral for aircraft design and production.
• Formal competitive tender with ten candidates; Scaleway won on technology, operations, and legal guarantees.
• Largest such defection from US hyperscalers by a European aerospace and defence prime.