Thales is working with Google Cloud to establish a sovereign cloud in Germany.

Building on the success of S3NS, Thales’ cloud subsidiary in France and operator of its first European sovereign cloud region, this agreement marks a step in meeting the German market’s demand for sovereign technology that shields sensitive data from extraterritorial laws.

Thales will launch a German entity, legally and operationally independent from Google Cloud, that will be staffed and managed by local German personnel, ensuring no third party, including non-European entities, can access the data stored or processed within it.

“Germany represents a critical market for sovereign technologies, and this partnership is a direct response to private and public sector German organisations wanting access to Google Cloud’s technology under full German control,” said Christoph Ruffner, country director of Thales in Germany. “By launching this locally operated infrastructure, we are delivering a solution that guarantees sensitive workloads remain protected from any extraterritorial reach while meeting the unique security and compliance requirements of our customers.”

Marianne Janik, vice president at Google Cloud (cloud.google.com), added: “Our partnership with Thales in Germany represents a significant milestone in our commitment to digital sovereignty in Germany and Europe. By combining the power and scale of Google Cloud with Thales’ deep expertise in cyber security and local operational control, we are enabling German organisations even in the most sensitive sectors to innovate with confidence, while meeting the specific legal and operational safeguards required by the local regulatory landscape.

This German sovereign cloud offering will bring the benefits of hyperscale cloud technology to companies and public sector organisations so they can innovate transparently, autonomously and securely. The planned new entity will be structured to ensure complete operational separation from Google Cloud, providing users with the legal and technical guarantees they need in an increasingly regulated environment. In addition, it should provide enhanced continuity and reliability across Europe.

The offering is available in preview now and expected to be generally available by the end of this year, and is being developed to meet regulatory requirements including C5 and the new C3A framework.

This expansion creates two complementary sovereign regions run by Thales (www.thalesgroup.com). With a technology and operating model identical to PREMI3NS by S3NS in France, this new region will also let German, French and European users benefit from enhanced resilience through disaster recovery capabilities across both regions while maintaining high security standards. Having achieved SecNumCloud 3.2 qualification for its PREMI3NS offering at the end of last year, S3NS demonstrated that cloud innovation can be combined with stringent security, operational control and strong protection of sensitive data.

The official name of the new German entity will be unveiled in the coming months.