EU proposes Cloud and AI Development Act to boost sovereignty

The European Commission has proposed the Cloud and AI Development Act to strengthen Europe’s cloud and AI ecosystem and reduce dependence on non-EU providers.

• Main announcement / action: The proposal establishes the Cloud and AI Leadership Initiatives, a four-tier Union assurance levels framework for sovereign cloud services, requires Member States to designate data center acceleration zones and to adopt national cloud and AI strategies within one year of entry into force, and empowers the Commission to designate data center strategic projects and a EuroCloud Federation to share public-sector capacity. It sets an objective to triple EU data center capacity in the next five-to-seven years and to reach needed capacity by 2035.
• Background and implementation details: The Commission requests 25 FTEs to implement the initiative (9 establishment posts + 16 contract agents) with 15 staff to be redeployed and 10 additional FTEs needing new financing; the initiative will be partly financed by fee-based revenue streams (joint procurement fees and EuroCloud Federation fees), includes a central repository of recognised Union-assured services, provides conformity self-assessment and independent third-party audits for assurance levels 1–4, and includes a five‑year review after entry into force. Entry into force is 20 days after publication and application generally one year after that.