As well-meaning as AWS undoubtedly is, I don't think they can meaningfully guarantee data sovereignty in the EU. This is legally untested.

Microsoft said as much in evidence to a French Senate committee back in June.

https://www.techzine.eu/news/privacy-compliance/133348/as-ex...

Anything is better than nothing but the fact of the matter is that it's still Amazon. It's the same amazon than gives ring cameras unfettered warrantless access to people's home, literally pays homage to kings and is a US company through and through.

Go European if you can - there was an article not too long ago that described how it was actually cheaper to use a EU cloud provider than AWS.

Also I read the article and the term 'digital sovereignty' is used. I don't think it means what the author thinks it means...

What a misnomer! This doesn't help becoming sovereign, just vassals.

AWS European Vassal Cloud.

The moment USA decides to mandate no more software updates or security maintenance, it won't stand on its own for much longer.

why does this remind me of an ancient warning about false prophets

I can see two problems with this.

1) It's hard to imagine AWS "EU" not complying with requests from the US administration. Even if we exclude clandestine requests based on the fact that the US doesn't respect sovereignty, imagine they ban, say, the export of cloud orchestration technologies just like they restricted GPU exports, including to the EU.

2) It's easy to imagine AWS "EU" trying to comply with all local EU laws and regulations which either brings the cloud to a halt or makes the usage of it impractical. Say, no AI models deployed until seven-years mandatory Environmental Impact Study has been performed. Or something along these lines.

The intent isn't true independence. I think we can all come up with half a dozen ways for AWS US to add backdoors when required to do so by the US government.

This moves makes a lot more sense when you view it as a compliance checkbox ticking exercise: for all intents and purposes they look like a truly independent company.

This means it'll be very hard to write public tenders in a way which exludes AWS, which enables them to sue when EU governments don't pick their "independent" cloud but use an (on paper) more expensive / less featureful EU cloud instead.

Also: https://press.aboutamazon.com/aws/2026/1/aws-launches-aws-eu...