US tech lobby study says EU cloud sovereignty law could cost €115bn over ten years
A study by Brussels think tank ECIPE, commissioned by lobby group CCIA Europe, estimates that the EU's proposed Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA) would cost €115bn over 2027–2036 in its central scenario, with a narrow case of €35.6bn and a broad case of €233bn. The European Commission's own upper estimate was €18bn. The study puts about €33.3bn of the cost on public budgets and roughly €80bn on private firms in energy, banking, transport and healthcare, a figure that rests on the assumption that Article 31 assessments reach a quarter of in-scope private cloud spending. The authors note the study does not value the security, resilience or strategic autonomy the law targets and is not a full cost-benefit analysis, while CCIA Europe, whose members include Amazon, Google and Meta, wants member states to limit the rules to sensitive workloads and drop origin-based requirements.
The estimate was paid for by CCIA Europe, a lobby group whose members include Amazon, Google and Meta, and CCIA is asking member states to limit CADA to sensitive workloads and drop origin-based requirements, so the figure feeds directly into how the EU scopes its cloud sovereignty rules.
- CCIA report says European Commission's cost estimates are way off the mark
- Pro-European restrictions could add to operating costs, migration complexity and more
- Importantly, these figures come from a group that represents Amazon, Google and other US Big Tech
Europe's efforts to tackle foreign tech vendor reliance could cost €115 billion over the next decade, a new report by the European Center for International Political Economy (ECIPE) claims.
The paper, commissioned by the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), specifically refers to the Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA).
However, the CCIA is a group that represents major American tech giants including Amazon, Google and Meta, who all have major commercial interested in Europe.
Europe could incur serious costs by ditching US tech hyperscalers
The Commission had previously estimated an upper-end cost of €18 billion over ten years, but ECIPE's estimate of €115 billion is around 6.4x higher. The paper specifically argues that restrictions favoring European cloud providers could increase operating costs, force customers to migrate workloads and spur on substantial software redevelopment, all of which adding to the long-term costs of ditching US cloud.
The paper splits this cost into two sectors – a €33 billion cost for the public sector, which includes governments and other public agencies acting in the interest of citizens, and a further €80 billion in costs for the private sector, which covers critical national infrastructure like banking, healthcare, energy and transportation.
Depending on how intensely the EU goes in on tech sovereignty, the paper's €115 billion projection is a mid-level estimate. Higher-end scenarios top €233 billion.
The group is lobbying European policymakers to assess sovereignty based on actual risks, rather than just the nationality of tech vendors.
"Taxpayers and businesses will foot the bill, yet the official assessment missed 70 percent of CADA's true impact," CCIA Europe policy manager Mitchell Rutledge said, urging member states not to rely on the European Commission's "incomplete estimates."