T-Systems and Google Cloud Partner to Deliver Sovereign Cloud for Germany

• Strategic, long-term partnership will provide a next-generation sovereign cloud solution
• Both companies to invest in technology solutions and co-innovation to serve local customer needs

 
T-Systems and Google Cloud today announced they will build and deliver sovereign cloud services for German enterprises, the public sector, and healthcare organizations. Breaking new ground, the companies will jointly innovate to develop a large spectrum of next-generation sovereign cloud solutions and infrastructure. These will allow customers to host their sensitive workloads on a sovereign cloud, whilst continuing to leverage the scalability, elasticity and reliability of public cloud services. Service management and operation of the sovereign cloud will be supervised by T-Systems.

"Our joint strategic goal is to support the digitalization of European companies and the public sector as they move operations to the cloud," explained Adel Al-Saleh, member of the Telekom Board of Management and CEO of T-Systems. "Together with Google Cloud, we will build a sovereign cloud services portfolio that provides clients with full control over their data, software and operations whilst leveraging the full power of Google Cloud. Even stricter compliance requirements for public sector institutions will be addressed. We are happy that we’ll be able to offer customers a cloud solution that is secure and sovereign, but also gives access to the innovation and scalability of Google Cloud in Germany. We are also considering Austria and Switzerland as a next step," he added.

Enabling digital transformation

For future growth, customers need access to the innovative capabilities and scalability of the public cloud. Also, they don’t want to risk lock-in to a particular vendor and keep full control over their data. "We’re committed to helping enable Germany’s digital transformation,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. “Data privacy, security and control are vital to European and German organizations as they digitize their operations. The sovereign cloud solution we are partnering with T-Systems to create will provide public and private-sector organizations with an additional layer of technical and operational measures and controls that ensure German customers can meet their data, operational, and software sovereignty requirements." 

In this new joint offering, that will be available as of mid 2022 and then upgraded over the following months, T-Systems will manage a set of sovereignty controls and measures, including encryption and identity management. In addition, T Systems will exercise a control function over relevant parts of the German Google Cloud infrastructure. Any physical or virtual access to facilities in Germany (such as routine maintenance and upgrades) will be under the supervision of T-Systems and Google Cloud.

Full sovereignty, full functionality

Initially, T-Systems will roll out the sovereign cloud offering to German organizations in several industries, including healthcare, automotive, public transport, and the public sector. Clients will benefit from:

• A full spectrum of highly innovative and scalable cloud technology at various levels of sovereignty
• Google Cloud’s open-source expertise that provides freedom of choice and prevents lock-in
• Increased openness and transparency for clients
• Easy integration with existing IT landscapes 
• Help complying with existing European sovereign cloud policies, including GDPR (European General Data Protection Regulation)
• Full public cloud scale as well as version and feature parity to global network

Co-innovation center in Munich

The expanded partnership also includes a commitment to co-innovation. Dedicated teams of engineers from both partners will collaborate on open-source technologies and solutions that meet the efficiency, data security and technical sovereignty needs of customers (data sovereignty, operational sovereignty and software sovereignty).

Together, T-Systems and Google Cloud further commit to sharing their knowledge and developing skills in Europe via training and workshops designed to enable partners and customers to fully leverage the value and innovation of sovereign-cloud solutions.

Customers will be able to experience the sovereign cloud capabilities and collaborate with Google Cloud and T-Systems engineers on their specific business technology challenges in a new world class training facility in Munich.

About Deutsche Telekom: Deutsche Telekom at a glance
About T-Systems: T-Systems company profile 

About Google Cloud: Google Cloud accelerates organizations’ ability to digitally transform their business with the best infrastructure, platform, industry solutions and expertise. We deliver enterprise-grade solutions that leverage Google’s cutting-edge technology – all on the cleanest cloud in the industry. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted partner to enable growth and solve their most critical business problems.

Press contact: press@google.com