Pure Storage on data sovereignty- why CIOs can't easily escape US hyperscalers…and how to manage the risk

French President Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly warned that Europe must achieve digital sovereignty and reduce its dependence on US technology giants, as the current White House administration has weakened the historic assumption that European technology buyers are in ‘safe hands’ with their data hosted on US providers. An example of the power these providers have was notable when the chief prosecutor from the International Criminal Court suddenly found his Microsoft email account disabled after the US imposed sanctions, forcing him to switch to a Swiss email provider. Across Europe, data sovereignty is shifting from a ‘nice to have’ to operational risk.

But the key challenge is that even as geopolitical tensions mount and regulatory pressure increases, the reality is that most European enterprises can't actually leave US cloud providers. They're trapped by decades of infrastructure decisions, billions in sunk costs, and a dependency that extends down to the ...