OVHcloud

OVHcloud is Europe's largest independent cloud provider and the most credible European alternative to Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. Headquartered in Roubaix, France, it operates 33 data centres across three continents and serves more than 1.6 million customers in 140 countries. Founded in 1999 by Octave Klaba, the company has remained privately held through the Klaba family, giving it independence from US shareholder pressure and allowing it to position itself explicitly as a sovereignty-compliant option for European businesses and government entities.

OVHcloud is a direct beneficiary of the European Commission's Digital Markets Act cloud probes against AWS and Azure, which accused both companies of anticompetitive data portability and interoperability practices that lock European customers in. The EC investigations, opened in 2025, are expected to produce remedies that make it easier for customers to switch providers, the core commercial opportunity OVHcloud and other European cloud firms have been pushing for through lobbying associations. OVHcloud has been vocal in European cloud sovereignty debates and participates in the GAIA-X initiative.

OVHcloud occupies the mid-market tier in European cloud, offering infrastructure-as-a-service at prices competitive with US hyperscalers but without matching their breadth of managed services. European sovereign cloud spend is forecast to triple to over €60 billion by 2027, a market OVHcloud is well positioned to capture alongside rivals Scaleway and Hetzner. The company's challenge is closing the managed services gap with AWS and Azure as European enterprises increasingly demand full-stack cloud capabilities, not just raw compute.