DeepL’s decision to process data on AWS servers leaves European customers uneasy

Translation service DeepL has informed clients that the company will use Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) servers to process data. For some European companies, the move leaves them with no choice but to seek alternatives.

Germany-based DeepL, one of the leading machine translation providers globally, has recently informed consumers that it is adding AWS to the list of processors.

The news unsettled Joerg Peter Weishaupt, CEO and CTO at Portugal-based Malogica Group, a custom software development company, who raised concerns that the partnership with a US provider would result in data flowing outside the European Union (EU).

Weishaupt told Cybernews that the new terms are incompatible with the reason the company – a member of Eurostack and a builder of sovereign European infrastructure – chose DeepL in the first place.

Therefore, the company formally objected to changes and moved to alternatives.

DeepL says it is evolving global infrastructure to give its customers “the performance, reliability, and innovation they deserve,” according to a written statement shared with Cybernews.

The company states that due to a rapidly growing customer base across multiple regions, it is implementing a next‑generation hybrid cloud strategy that combines its “trusted data centers in the European Economic Area with additional cloud resources from AWS.”

“Privacy, security, and trust are our highest standards, guiding every step of our AI research and product development. Our expanding infrastructure allows us to bring that same uncompromising commitment to customers everywhere in the world,” the statement reads.

However, Weishaupt says he isn’t convinced by the “scalability and reliability” justification, saying European cloud service providers could help address these needs.

“This is a pattern, not an isolated decision. Vendors built on a sovereignty promise keep quietly trading it for hyperscaler convenience, and European buyers are running out of trustworthy options,” he tells Cybernews.

Europe’s cloud problem

DeepL’s partnership with AWS comes as European governments are turning away from US technologies, citing vulnerabilities stemming from a heavy reliance on the American stack, especially cloud services.

Three American giants – Google, AWS, and Microsoft – account for about 70% of the cloud market in Europe.

While European providers cannot yet fully replace American companies, some are fighting back. Dutch companies have recently signed a landmark agreement aimed at strengthening their position against US cloud giants in competition for government contracts.

Among their goals is keeping data within EU borders, given that privacy is a major concern with the use of American cloud providers.

US laws, such as the 2018 Cloud Act, compel US tech companies like AWS to provide data requested by American law enforcement regardless of where the data is stored and processed.

Patrick Münch, a chief security officer and co-founder of the exposure management platform Mondoo, says companies relying on US cloud providers can get caught between extraterritorial laws such as the CLOUD Act and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

“They can become overly dependent on a few large cloud providers, struggling to stay compliant as their cloud environments evolve,” he tells Cybernews.

AWS, however, says it hasn’t disclosed any data stored outside the US to the US government since 2020, when it started collecting statistics. The company emphasizes that the Cloud Act doesn’t give the US government “unfettered or automatic access to data.”

Nevertheless, amid heightened geopolitical tensions between Washington and European capitals, using US providers to store and process data will likely remain a contentious issue.

Microsoft’s recent announcement that its AI-powered assistant, Copilot, will soon allow large language model (LLM) inferencing to occur outside the EU Data Boundary during peak demand periods raised similar concerns.

They can become overly dependent on a few large cloud providers, struggling to stay compliant as their cloud environments evolve.

Patrick Münch

Not so sovereign European cloud

AWS has addressed independence concerns by launching the European Sovereign Cloud (ESC) in early 2026, which is hosted on European soil and is run and managed by European residents.

Dan Herbatschek, the CEO and Founder of software development company Ramsey Theory Group, says AWS ESC providers offer greater reassurance regarding data residency, operational control, and governance within EU borders.

However, he emphasizes that sovereignty is not just about where data is located. In the end, Herbatschek says, it all comes down to who has “access, control, and legal authority over that data.”

Eric Avery, the head of global data and infrastructure at Sumo Logic, says AWS ESC adheres to the Shared Responsibility Model, which states that everything in the cloud is the customer’s responsibility, including how they configure services and what they do with their data.

He tells Cybernews, “It would be unreasonable to expect any cloud provider to fully lock down a geography and would be counter to continually evolving regulations, company operating models and innovation.”

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