Deutsche Telekom has expanded its T Cloud Public offering, a move designed to create a fully sovereign cloud alternative for European customers and support the European Union’s strategic ambitions for data sovereignty. The company pledged that by 2026, the platform will match the core features of dominant U.S. hyperscalers, providing scalable infrastructure and advanced AI services from within the EU.
The expanded platform, managed by Deutsche Telekom (DT) subsidiary T-Systems, is engineered to provide a competitive European cloud solution. According to the company, the service is built on a modern zero-trust architecture and follows a “security-by-design” principle. This ensures that all data is processed in European data centers, making it fully compliant with EU regulations and legally protected from access by non-EU authorities.
A central feature of the expansion is the new Industrial AI Cloud platform, supported by Nvidia technology, which reportedly went live on . T-Systems claims this service provides direct access to scarce GPU resources for compute-intensive AI applications and will increase the available GPU capacity in Germany by a significant 50%, positioning it as Europe’s largest sovereign AI infrastructure.
The initiative aims to resolve a long-standing dilemma for European businesses. Until now, companies had to choose between maximum functionality from overseas or European sovereignty,
stated Ferri Abolhassan, CEO of T-Systems. With T Cloud Public, we now deliver the best of both worlds. We are not just building a sovereign cloud, we are building the digital foundation for a competitive and free Europe.
This focus on sovereignty extends beyond technical security. Christine Knackfuss, Chief Sovereignty Officer at T-Systems, added, We continuously challenge our own level of sovereignty, using our telecommunication industry regulations as a key benchmark, and are exploring ways to become even more independent.
The company asserts that users are guaranteed legal and operational sovereignty under European law.
According to T-Systems, the T Cloud Public platform already delivers 80% of the core features common to U.S. hyperscalers. The company has laid out a clear roadmap to reach full core feature parity by . To assist customers in moving away from non-EU providers, DT will also introduce an automated migration tool alongside professional services.
An assessment by the technology research firm Information Services Group (ISG) suggests the expanded platform already outperforms other European cloud alternatives and is more competitive than some offerings from global technology companies. This positions Deutsche Telekom as one of the few European providers operating at a comparable technological level to global giants.
While Deutsche Telekom has outlined its strategic goals and timeline, specific details regarding the pricing structure for the expanded T Cloud Public and its Industrial AI Cloud services have not yet been made public. Furthermore, technical specifications for the new automated migration tool and independent, third-party performance benchmarks comparing the platform against AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud are not yet available.
Deutsche Telekom and T-Systems will now focus on the development required to meet the 2026 feature parity target. The immediate next step involves the rollout and customer adoption of the Industrial AI Cloud. Over the coming months, potential customers can expect more information on migration tools and support services as the company works to attract European enterprises and public sector organizations prioritizing data sovereignty.
Organizations operating within the EU should consider re-evaluating their cloud provider dependencies in light of this new sovereign offering. IT leaders are advised to review T Cloud Public’s current and planned features against their specific data residency and compliance requirements. Businesses with significant AI or high-performance computing needs may find it beneficial to investigate the GPU resources now available through the Industrial AI Cloud. Finally, companies currently using U.S.-based cloud services should review their data governance policies to understand the potential legal and operational benefits of migrating to an EU-based platform.
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