Selected companies and organizations

Cloud Temple, Thales, Bull, Vates, and the CEA have been chosen by Bpifrance as part of a project called "Strengthening the cloud services offering" under the France 2030 initiative. This initiative is a French government program aimed at boosting national and European technological capabilities.

Funding and timeline

The selected consortium will receive 47 million euros in funding until 2028, with 20 million euros coming directly from the French state through the France 2030 program. The funds will support the development of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and trusted artificial intelligence services.

Focus on secure cloud services

The future cloud services must meet strict security and compliance standards, including SecNumCloud, the HDS status, and the German C5 reference. The consortium is targeting a specific segment of the market: AI processing on sensitive data that requires secure environments, rather than competing in the entire public cloud market.

Emphasis on collaboration and security

The founders of the project emphasize that they are not aiming for a "race to raw power," meaning they are prioritizing secure and reliable solutions over simply increasing computational power. Thales brings its security expertise and services from S3NS, while Cloud Temple, which leads the program, already has a qualified SecNumCloud infrastructure.

Contributions from each member

Bull contributes through a software platform focused on AI, and the CEA joins to provide "scientific support to unlock the architectures of the next generation." Vates brings an open source virtualization base, which is described as ensuring interoperability and reversibility of the technology.

Focus on critical use cases and multi-cloud hybridization

The challenge for the five partners is to consolidate an European industrial capacity in areas where it can be competitive: critical uses that require high security and reliability. Multi-cloud hybridization, or the ability to use multiple cloud services together, is considered essential for this effort.

Strategic approach and legal considerations

The consortium prefers to scale up existing actors already in production rather than setting up a new company. The project, launched in March 2024, is part of France 2030's strategy to enhance digital sovereignty and AI capabilities in France and Europe. It also highlights the impact of extraterritorial laws such as NIS 2, DORA, and the AI Act, which are shaping how organizations approach digital and AI processing.