France and Germany have launched plans to establish an EU-wide data infrastructure, as part of efforts to challenge the dominance of tech giants including Amazon and Microsoft over the cloud computing market.

A joint statement issued by the finance ministries of France and Germany announced a timetable for the development of a blueprint for a “secure and trustworthy” European data infrastructure to foster home-grown cloud computing challengers.

The countries will hold a workshop outlining the plans by the end of November in a bid to encourage other interested companies in European member states to join and provide feedback. The project will then serve as a as basis for a future wider European collaboration with the aim of presenting the results of the project by spring 2020.

French finance minister Bruno Le Maire said: “We want to establish a safe and sovereign European data infrastructure, including data warehouses, data pooling and develop data interoperability.

“By working together, European companies will benefit from a larger pool of data to develop their algorithms and enhance their position in a global and very competitive market – this is important for Europe’s digital and technological autonomy.”

German federal minister Peter Altmaier said: “This infrastructure will help us regain our digital sovereignty and can form the basis for a digital ecosystem where data can be made available, collated and shared.”

The move comes after concerns over the dominance of Alphabet’s Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft’s Azure – which account for more than half of the cloud computing market worldwide.

European lawmakers are responding to concerns that data storage services provided by a limited number of US-based firms could be affected by the recent adoption of the US CLOUD Act of 2018, potentially raising fears of privacy issues for huge amounts of sensitive corporate data.

Earlier this year, Le Maire called on French tech firms Dassault Systemes and OVH to develop strategies for cloud computing products which could challenge the dominance of US tech giants.

Earlier this month it was revealed that Microsoft had won a $10 billion contract to provide cloud computing services to the Pentagon, while AWS had a $600 million contract with the CIA.

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