De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), the Dutch central bank, is signing a major contract with Schwarz Digits — the IT arm of Lidl's parent company Schwarz Group — to migrate to a European cloud platform called Stackit. The move is driven by geopolitical concerns about dependency on American cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, which are subject to the U.S. Cloud Act. Schwarz Digits positions Stackit as a sovereign European cloud where data remains under European law. The platform already serves Lidl, Kaufland, Deutsche Bahn, SAP, and Bayern Munich. DNB acknowledges European cloud alternatives are not yet as mature as American ones, but is prioritizing reduced geopolitical risk. The transition mirrors broader European efforts to reduce reliance on U.S. tech infrastructure, though such migrations have proven challenging, as seen in Schleswig-Holstein's troubled switch from Microsoft to open-source systems.
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