Page 37 - Monaco Economie 126

The Sovereign Cloud is all about Sovereignty by Milena Radoman

For Monaco, having its own sovereign cloud is about asserting sovereignty in a digital world
dominated by American and Chinese giants.

“I am particularly proud that the Principality of he void Cloud’ ct a sovereign cloud in which the State is the
Monaco is the first country in Europe to have Why do we want to create a sovereign cloud majority shareholder, the objective is to

a Sovereign State Cloud. This achievement at all costs? For States, it concerns digital offer cloud services that meet “the highest

is part of our ambitious policy for the digital sovereignty. It fights against the domination of technological and security standards” to
development of our economy and constitutes American GAFAMs (Google, Apple, Facebook, Government, organizations of vital importance,
an essential aspect of its attractiveness for our Amazon, Microsoft) and Chinese BATXs and private companies. “The most sensitive
population and all those who wish to come and (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and Xiaomi) which data can even benefit from a sovereign
live here”, declared Prince Albert II at the launch dominate European markets and put them in encryption solution implemented by Monaco
of Monaco Cloud in 2021. It must be said that a situation of technological dependence by Cloud”, says the company, recalling that
the European continent has taken some time to dictating their standards. For the majority of “the operator’s infrastructures are located in
launch a sovereign cloud. The Gaia-X project, European companies, the shift to the cloud Monaco”. This implies that hosted data is

which had been presented as the “first step” began a decade ago. For lack of a good stored in the Principality (transiting through
towards a “European cloud infrastructure”, alternative solution in Europe, 70 to 80% of the Monaco Telecom network on Monegasque
took a turn for the worse with the departure them outsource their data, including the most territory). Placed under Monegasque law, they

of one of its founders, Scaleway. In February confidential, through American leaders such are not at risk of being exfiltrated since they are

2022, twelve Member States of the EU (France, as Amazon or Microsoft. This poses a major not subject to the Patriot Act, the Cloud Act,
Germany, Belgium, Spain, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, security problem, especially after the scandal or any jurisdiction outside Monaco. In 2022,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, of the Prism spy program, revealing that the Monaco Cloud services were also certifi ed
and the Czech Republic) then announced their American government had access to data on according to methodology recommended
intention to launch a major sovereign cloud the servers of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, by the Monegasque Cyber Security Agency.
project on a European scale. It took the form Yahoo, Apple and Skype… As for the Cloud Act, it An approval that is based on the security
of an IPCEI (Important Project of Common clearly authorises the American administration policy for State Information Systems Security
European Interest) financed to the tune of 7 to legally seize emails or any other documents Policy (PSSIE) aimed at protecting against

billion euros which would involve some 180 and electronic communications stored on cyberattacks such as hacking, breaches
European companies. In France, sovereign or American servers abroad! This extraterritorial of privacy and sabotage of information
trusted cloud initiatives are multiplying, such law empowers the Administration to claim systems. They will soon be qualified as PINH

as OVHcloud, which offers isolation from the data stored on the servers of all service (SecNumCloud equivalent).
extraterritorial legislation and SecNumCloud providers working on United States soil, Today, Monaco Cloud has 30 clients - businesses
labelling. “regardless” of their location. and institutions - and already offers “sovereign
This is why Monaco entered the race. With solutions such as safes, electronic signatures
and sovereign encryption”. This offer will soon
be expanded with a “new standalone backup
and recovery service as well as an optimized
and unassailable high-capacity storage service
(S3)”, the company recently announced. The
launch of its “marketplace” is scheduled for

the first half of 2023.
To encourage companies to migrate their
infrastructures to the sovereign cloud, Monaco
Cloud also has another incentive: the savings
generated. Up to 50% over 5 years for a
company “compared to the on-site model”*…
The State, for its part, sets the example. It
has already started migrating its data to the
Sovereign Cloud and should complete this
operation - codenamed “Gov to cloud” - by the
end of 2024/2025.

*Source: www.idc.com Fostering Business and Organizational Transformation to Generate Business Value with AWS.

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