Germany would rather accept weaker cloud services than depend on US providers

German companies are increasingly concerned about being overreliant on American tech. The latest figures show that a growing number of businesses would rather store their data on a national cloud system and even compromise some services and lower prices to avoid providers from abroad, particularly the US.

A recent industry survey suggests that Germany’s appetite for a more domestic technological environment is growing. The reasons for it are twofold, as this week, policymakers have warned that access to critical American AI systems could be cut off or restricted on political grounds. That’s one of the issues dominating discussions at the G7 in France and VivaTech in Paris.

At the same time, German businesses themselves are willing to make sacrifices out of fear of becoming too reliant on US tech.

Over 600 businesses that responded to the survey by the digital industry association Bitkom found that 85% of companies believe Germany is too dependent on US cloud providers, up from 78% last year.

A growing share of firms also indicated they would accept trade-offs to use a fully domestic cloud service. For example, around 37% said they would consider a service that stores and processes data exclusively in Germany, even if it meant fewer features or higher costs, compared with 27% a year earlier.

“Cloud is indispensable for the German economy. In light of geopolitical changes, Germany as a cloud location has moved into focus,” says Bitkom President Dr. Ralf Wintergerst.

“Germany must break free from one-sided dependencies, including in digital infrastructure. This will be a central task for the new federal government.”

But could EU-made tech only seem better until one starts using it?

Possibly, and while this is only one report, experiments by Cybernews appear to confirm it.

Firstly, the survey showed a gap between people who currently use German alternatives to US tech and what they’d actually prefer.

While 71% of companies currently use US-based cloud providers, only 8% say they would prefer them.

By contrast, 91% would prefer German providers, compared with 53% currently using them.

Cybernews has previously compared some EU-made software and apps to their US equivalents.

The experiments did reveal some limitations that social media junkies might consider deal-breakers. Take Monnett, for example, a Luxembourg-based image and video sharing app often presented as the European version of Instagram.

According to Cybernews Senior Journalist Eglė Krištopaitytė, who checked out the platform, it closely resembles Instagram and allows users to share videos, pictures, and exchange encrypted messages. The downside? So far, Monnett has only 50,000 users, and therefore neither carries the audience needed to help content gain traction, nor provides a variety of content produced by established creators.

EU-made tech can still lead back to the US

Cybernews has also looked at European alternatives to Google Search. Among many variants is GOOD – a Berlin-based search engine which markets itself as “an escape from big tech.” However, as our research shows, the engine is based on an independent index which is developed and operated by the American company Brave Software, Inc.

GOOD says it neither collects, nor stores data, claiming that its mobile browser apps include ad blockers and anti-tracking.

However, the company works with third-party providers, including Bing and Wikipedia, to display ads and search results.

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