Thales announced a strategic alliance with Google Cloud to build a sovereign cloud solution for Germany, aimed at organizations in the public sector and highly regulated industries that require strict digital sovereignty controls. The offering will run on dedicated infrastructure and be managed by a new German legal entity that Thales will fully own and control.
The new unit will be staffed and governed by local German personnel, a design choice intended to ensure that no third party - including entities outside Europe - will have access to data stored or processed within the environment.
"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," said Christoph Ruffner, CEO and Country Director of Thales in Germany.
The service is available in preview today and the partners aim for general availability by the end of 2026. Development of the solution is explicitly geared toward meeting regulatory requirements, including the C5 standard and the new C3A framework criteria.
The agreement sets up a distinct German entity that will be legally and operationally independent from Google Cloud. That entity will operate in parallel with PREMI3NS by S3NS, a Thales subsidiary based in France. The companies describe the arrangement as creating the first pan-European, geo-redundant sovereign cloud offering by linking the German region with the French PREMI3NS service.
"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," said Marianne Janik, Vice President, EMEA North, Google Cloud.
Technically, the German region will use the same technology and operating model that underpins PREMI3NS by S3NS in France. S3NS secured SecNumCloud 3.2 qualification for its PREMI3NS offering at the end of 2025, a qualification the partners cite as relevant to the design and assurance of the new German environment.
Thales currently employs 2,300 people across nine sites in Germany and notes a long-standing presence in the country dating back to 1880. The official name for the new German entity will be disclosed in the coming months.
For organizations and regulators watching sovereign cloud developments, the arrangement brings a locally controlled operational model combined with Google Cloud technology while relying on Thales for ownership and operational control.