Europe is increasingly examining its reliance on American cloud computing services, prompting the European Union to take steps aimed at reducing this dependence and enhancing digital sovereignty. Recent research highlights a significant gap in the development of artificial intelligence models, with only two major ones emerging in Europe over the past 20 years, compared to 50 in the United States and 30 in China. To address these concerns, the EU introduced the Cloud Sovereignty Framework (CSF) in October 2025. This initiative aims to establish measurable standards for digital sovereignty, building on existing efforts like the Gaia-X project and regulations such as DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act) and NIS2 (Network and Information Systems Directive). The CSF's goal is to enable the EU to favor cloud providers that meet strict compliance and low-risk criteria in public sector procurement. According to the Bitkom Cloud Report 2026, about 85% of German companies believe Germany is overly reliant on U.S. cloud providers. Additionally, nearly two-thirds of local users (64%) feel forced to reassess their IT strategies due to policies enacted by the U.S. government. In response, countries like France are already taking action. For example, the French government has announced plans to replace Microsoft Windows with Linux on its government computers. The national health insurance fund has already transitioned 80,000 employees from platforms like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Dropbox to locally developed alternatives, signaling a broader shift toward digital self-reliance. The Cloud Sovereignty Framework places a strong emphasis on controlling and consolidating digital traffic flows within regional boundaries. It favors cloud providers who operate in a transparent, resilient, and sovereign manner, ensuring systems are protected from external influences or the interests of third countries. This includes making sure data paths are traceable and manageable at the regional level, keeping them within the EU’s legal framework. The CSF also evaluates cloud services based on supply chain-related legal, operational, and technological goals, promoting more decentralized and resilient infrastructure such as mutually secured interconnection platforms. Distributed and provider-neutral Internet Exchanges (IXs) have long embraced this philosophy, enabling high-availability, secure, and controlled data exchange among all companies, partners, and cloud services within the digital ecosystem. Although the EU does not formally include IXs as a scoring criterion in the CSF, the framework strongly implies their importance in achieving digital sovereignty. These exchanges represent a key component in building a more independent and resilient digital infrastructure within Europe.