Thales, a company renowned for its expertise in technology innovation and cybersecurity, has entered into a strategic collaboration with Google Cloud with the objective of forming a new sovereign cloud solution, which will be specifically aimed at the German market. Leveraging on its successful experience from the already existing S3NS (a Thales’ cloud joint venture in France), Thales is set to introduce high performance and hyperscale cloud computing solutions for Germany that protect data from being reached by foreign legal jurisdictions.
Legal & Operational Sovereignty for Germany
To guarantee strict compliance with local laws, Thales has planned to create a new German corporate entity. The entity will have no connection to Google Cloud in terms of both operation and legal issues. The new entity will comprise purely of German staff who will be responsible for operating and managing the organization.
This is aimed at preventing non-European or any other unlicensed party from gaining access to data either stored or processed by the entity.
“Germany represents a critical market for sovereign technologies, and this partnership is a direct response to private and public sector German organizations wanting access to Google Cloud’s technology under full German control. 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,” said Christoph Ruffner, CEO and Country Director of Thales in Germany.
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“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 cybersecurity and local operational control, we are enabling German organizations even in the most sensitive sectors to innovate with confidence, while meeting the specific legal and operational safeguards required by the local regulatory landscape,” said Marianne Janik, Vice President, EMEA North, Google Cloud.
A Preview Framework Designed for Regulatory Compliance
The new sovereign cloud platform is built to match the strict security criteria of the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). The infrastructure is designed from the ground up to achieve compliance with the Cloud Computing Compliance Criteria Catalogue (C5) as well as the new C3A framework.
Status of Availability: The solution will be available on Preview mode from day one.
Commercial Availability: Commercial release is expected to take place before the end of 2026.
Main Advantage: It allows for easy cloud migration without losing control or visibility.
Establishing a Resilient, Multi-Region European Cloud
This expansion creates a powerful dual-region sovereign cloud footprint managed under the Thales umbrella. Operating on a model identical to the PREMI3NS architecture deployed by S3NS in France-which achieved the prestigious SecNumCloud 3.2 qualification at the end of 2025-the new German region establishes cross-border disaster recovery and business continuity capabilities.
“S3NS highly welcomes this new partnership. With this German region, we are building a European first: by aiming for both SecNumCloud qualification and C5 – C3A framework across both regions, it is the first time a sovereign cloud model targets different local certifications simultaneously, simplifying the compliance burden for multinational customers. And by providing this multi-region sovereign cloud capability, we will enable European organizations to benefit from enhanced resilience, without ever compromising on sovereignty,” said Hélène Bringer, President of S3NS and Vice-President, Critical Information Systems at Thales.
Thales, whose industrial background dates back to 1880 in Germany, now has 2,300 employees working at nine state-of-the-art facilities throughout the country. Thanks to its longstanding experience in defense, aerospace, and digital identity management systems in Germany, this newly established business entity is in a strong position to take on Germany’s top-tier digital projects.