Our VivaTech 2026 Takeaways: Building at European scale

In cloud computing, the thinking in Europe has long been: “Build a national champion first, then expand.”

In many ways, this came out of habit. Linguistic barriers and regulatory fragmentation across Europe forced even the most ambitious companies to start small and hone in on a handful of key territories before considering broader expansion.

When it comes to the cloud, this approach may have been sufficient a few years ago, when the technology was still emerging and companies were still figuring out how to put it to use. National players at the time could serve demand, because that demand was local, limited, and growing slowly.

That is no longer the case.

Cloud computing is now widespread: according to Eurostat, 53% of EU enterprises used paid cloud computing services in 2025 — up more than 7 points from 2023. Across industries, organizations are moving an ever-larger share of their workflows to the cloud. In fact, Eutelsat estimates that over 40% of enterprises showed a “high level of dependence on the cloud” in 2025. And demand is still growing: PwC’s 2025 EMEA Cloud Business Survey found that a whopping 94% of organisations plan to adjust and expand their cloud architecture and coverage.

Meanwhile, the same fragmentation that used to constrain geographic expansion now requires businesses to bring their data and workflows closer to wherever their users are, including for compliance purposes. That means cloud providers need the geographic reach and capacity to serve their customers across markets, not just within them. In this context, truly European scale has become the baseline.

AI only raises the stakes.

The next wave of cloud demand will not come only from companies moving existing workloads to the cloud. It will come from organizations building, deploying, and scaling AI systems: training models, running inference, connecting AI to business data, and embedding it into everyday workflows. These workloads require vast amounts of compute, resilient infrastructure, low-latency access to data, and the ability to scale quickly across markets.

That makes the national-first model even less suited to what comes next. Europe does not need a collection of small cloud markets hoping to scale later. It needs providers that are European by design: able to mutualize resources, absorb demand, support AI workloads, and give customers a credible alternative at continental scale.

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Explore the full VivaTech takeaways

At VivaTech 2026, one question stood out: how can Europe remain competitive by building and scaling more of its technology at home?

Our executive briefing brings together the key insights from four days of discussions on cloud, AI, infrastructure, and digital sovereignty — and explores what they mean for Europe’s technology ecosystem.

Download the Scaleway Briefing: VivaTech 2026 Takeaways.