GAIA-X evolutions: Scaleway highlights key expectations

Yann Lechelle, CEO

Scaleway’s CEO, Yann Lechelle, reacts to the latest announcement from the GAIA-X board of directors, finally validating the membership of 212 new companies and research organizations who had expressed interest in joining the association. In addition, a compliance label to help users identify services which respect the principles of GAIA-X will be created.

For Scaleway’s CEO Yann Lechelle, “after an intense year of collective efforts to build up GAIA-X from scratch, it is very satisfying to see the association up and running. Concrete progress is being made thanks to the constant involvement of the executive staff, along with the board members and a wide range of global tech players”.


“GAIA-X is no longer a myth, it is a reality: the recent validation of 212 members shows that the initial ambitions of the founding members have been taken seriously, going beyond Europe’s borders. So is our capacity to deliver”.


For Yann Lechelle, this extension of GAIA-X’s membership serves to strengthen the relevance of having only EU entities involved in the governance of the association: “if we want to make sure that GAIA-X’s rules in-the-making are aligned with our European digital values, it is fully legitimate to have EU players taking decisions to lead the GAIA-X AISBL”.


“Our objective remains unchanged: we want, through GAIA-X, to strengthen the European digital ecosystem by fixing common, federating rules in terms of transparency, reversibility, portability and security”.


Debunking a widespread myth about GAIA-X, Yann Lechelle adds that “by-design, GAIA-X should not be seen as a driver towards greater strategic autonomy”. Instead, “we should talk about an instrument for the improvement of the uptake of cloud solutions in Europe, based on values, practices and standards shared by European companies on both the supply and demand sides, as well as European RTOs and law-makers”.


Yann Lechelle concludes that “we now have high expectations concerning the creation of the ‘GAIA-X label’ aimed at identifying services compliant with GAIA-X principles. This will not be a case of giving a blank check to any entity that complies, however. If the criteria set are not sufficiently demanding, trust will not be there. The success of this will be critical for GAIA-X in the months to come.”.