Europe has a complicated relationship with digitalisation. On the one hand, there is the will to set one's own standards, to maintain technological independence and not to be completely dependent on US and Chinese tech giants. Especially since officially confirmed under oath, that data sovereignty cannot be guaranteed. On the other hand, the EU often struggles to translate these ambitions into marketable products and functioning infrastructures.
First last week in the news, we read that the Digital Ministry had to admit that Germany Relying on US Tech Service Providers is. Nothing comes from nothing...
A prime example of this is Gaia-X. 2019 with The Great Promise Begins, the project should create a federated European cloud ecosystem. The idea sounded strong: a common standard focusing on data sovereignty, transparency and interoperability. But reality quickly caught up with the vision.
Gaia-X: Big vision, small impact
The problem with Gaia-X was not the idea – but the implementation. Too many different interests of politics, industry and research led to entanglement in governance issues instead of developing concrete solutions.
Instead of quickly establishing first technical standards, the project remained stuck in workshops, consortia and concept papers for a long time. Meanwhile, reliance on AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud continued to grow, and market leaders massively expanded their lead in scaling, AI offerings, and developer ecosystems.
In short: Europe has lost precious time. Gaia-X still exists, but its relevance is low. At best, it was a learning process, at worst, a reminder of how cumbersome European digital initiatives can be.
8ra: a second attempt – this time with a technical basis
With the 8ra Cloud Edge Initiative Europe is trying to restart. And this time there is a crucial innovation: one Specific technical reference architecture. The so-called IPCEI-CIS Reference Architecture (ICRA) At its core, it is a blueprint that describes exactly what a federated cloud edge infrastructure could look like in Europe. Incidentally, the abbreviation IPCEI, these are the important projects of European interest, advertised: Important Projects of Common European Interest.
Unlike Gaia-X, it's not just about beautiful words, it's about a clear structure:
- From physical layer The hardware over Networks, Virtualization and Platform Services up to Data, AI and Applications It describes exactly how the individual levels should play together.
- In addition, cross-cutting topics such as Safety, sustainability and management directly taken into account, i.e. not as later add-ons, but as fixed components of the system.
- Particularly exciting: The architecture should Connect Cloud and Edge Seamlessly. Instead of deciding whether data is processed centrally or decentrally, workloads can be distributed dynamically, depending on whether it is computing power, low latency or energy efficiency.
Thus, 8ra acts less like a political statement and more like a political statement. Technical toolbox, Which you can actually work with.
Opportunities: Why 8RA could be more successful
It all sounds like real progress. Particularly because 8R Proximity to practice set. Instead of only defining standards that could be implemented at some point, they are already being implemented. Pilot projects. It shows whether the architecture works, where adaptations are necessary and which interfaces exist in reality.
Also the Federal approach is interesting: 8ra does not want to create ‘a European cloud provider’; but link many providers with each other via open interfaces. This could also give small and medium-sized players the chance to become part of the ecosystem – a crucial difference from hyperscalers, where smaller providers often do not play a role.
And last but not least: Open source. A large part of the initiative deliberately relies on open standards and community approaches. This is not only a question of transparency and trust, but also a prerequisite to avoid dependencies on individual manufacturers.
Risks: Déjà vu danger
Despite all the progress, we shouldn't fool ourselves: Also 8ra is not a self-runner. Many of the risks are strikingly reminiscent of Gaia-X.
The Technical complexity A federated cloud edge infrastructure is huge. Companies are already struggling to orchestrate multicloud environments cleanly, and here we are talking about an even more heterogeneous, Europe-wide distributed infrastructure. If interfaces are not really standardized or the orchestration remains too complicated, the vision threatens to get stuck in theory again.
In addition, there is the Time factor. As early as 2019, Europe was lagging behind, and since then the gap has only widened. During 8ra on Version 1.0 of Architecture AWS, Google and Microsoft have long established new services around AI, IoT or automated resource management and are gaining more customers, developers and data every day.
And finally, it remains political dimension. So federated 8ra is also thought: If every country or industry group wants to push through its own interests again, a relapse into the old Gaia-X dynamic threatens: Many important flipchart meetings, little tangible results.
Conclusion: Skepticism with a glimmer of hope
With 8ra, Europe is therefore launching a second attempt to create its own digital infrastructure. The big difference to Gaia-X: This time there is a solid technical base and real pilot projects. This is a progress that should not be downplayed.
At the same time, the risks must not be ignored. The international competition is faster, bigger and established in the market. If Europe hesitates too long, 8ra will at some point be just a niche project chasing global trends.
And yet: 8ra has a chance – perhaps the last one – to regain Europe’s digital sovereignty at least a little bit. Whether this succeeds depends not so much on architecture, but on whether politics and economics will be successful this time around. Discipline and speed What they missed about Gaia-X.
Here is the old dilemma: Europe thinks big – but whether it is big is yet to be seen.
EN 
DE 
ES 
FR 
IT