Sixty-one percent of Western European CIOs and IT leaders say geopolitical factors will increase their reliance on local or regional cloud providers, according to a survey from Gartner.
The survey was conducted online from May through July 2025 among 241 CIOs and IT leaders in Western Europe to determine their cloud-related technology purchases and adoption.
Amid ongoing geopolitical tensions, organisations in Western Europe are increasingly worried about their digital sovereignty – having their data, operations, and technology hosted by foreign cloud providers and relying on foreign cloud infrastructure.
Gartner predicts that, by 2030, more than 75% of all enterprises outside of the US will have a digital sovereignty strategy, supported by a sovereign cloud strategy.
Rene Buest, senior director analyst at Gartner, says: “Many Western European organizations can’t run all of their workloads or core systems in a non-European cloud environment. This is either because they are subject to specific regulations, their customers demand it, or they are considered part of a country’s critical infrastructure.”
Some Western European organisations have begun seeking ways to reduce their reliance on global cloud providers. Fifty-three percent of Western European CIOs and IT leaders said geopolitics will restrict their organisations’ future use of global cloud providers.
Geopatriation and open-source technologies
Some organizations in Western Europe are considering moving their workloads from global cloud vendors to local alternatives. “While geopatriation can enable local cloud options to meet geopolitical needs, full independence from global tech vendors will take several years of ongoing effort and investments by local providers,” Buest says.
For others, open source could be a viable option. Fifty-five percent of CIOs and IT leaders said open-source technologies will be an important factor in their future cloud strategies. While open-source favors customisation and flexibility, it also presents challenges as many projects are complex and smaller projects often need to be coordinated with one another.
“Organisations that have been slower to adopt cloud technologies are now in a favorable position to plan for greater digital sovereignty,” says Buest. “Since they mainly have legacy systems, they can carefully choose which cloud solutions or platforms are best suited for each part of their operations.”
Overall, CIOs and IT leaders must take responsibility for their organisation’s digital destiny. “They must create and protect their own organisation’s digital sovereignty,” says Buest. “No one else will protect their organization’s digital sovereignty – neither their cloud provider nor their service provider.”