00:00Bienvenue à Viva Tech, si vous avez juste suivi nous.
00:04Je suis Delphine Sabatier, je suis un tech journaliste et je suis ici, votre host, pour cette afternoon.
00:11Je vais parler avec Yann Le Chêle, mon premier guest, aujourd'hui, pour parler de sovereignty.
00:17Donc, chaque jour, nous sommes utilisés online et nous sommes produisent plus et plus de données.
00:25Mais qui a-t-il, qui a-t-il, et comment est-il utilisé?
00:30More and more institutions, citizens, governments are realising the importance to protect, to secure, and to gain data sovereignty.
00:38To discuss this subject and talk about the project of European Cloud, I'm thrilled to be on stage with Yann
00:45Le Chêle, CEO at Scaleway.
00:48Welcome, Yann. Thank you for joining us today.
00:51So, Yann, Scaleway is offering a complete solution of cloud based in Europe.
00:58Tell us, for European companies and citizens, what is the added value to hosting data in this continent rather than
01:10elsewhere?
01:10So, the added value is huge in a sense that the problem is new.
01:19In the past, companies used to maintain their own personal cloud in their own companies.
01:25And over the past two decades, the model has shifted to as-a-service.
01:33The notion of as-a-service means that the computing, the workloads, the data is being managed by someone else,
01:42by an infrastructure provider.
01:43And this has been evolving, of course, but AWS is the pioneer.
01:49They did it for themselves, and then they gave it as a solution for other companies in the world.
01:55So, the cloud has evolved in the past 20 years, meaning that more and more data is being handled by
02:01someone else.
02:02So, your question is very specific.
02:04What is the advantage for French or European clients to use and locate their data in France?
02:10Well, it's more complex than that because it's not just where it is, but who controls it as a service.
02:19So, therefore, the question is, who owns the data center?
02:21Who owns the servers?
02:23Who owns the software that runs on top of it?
02:26And that is precisely the problem.
02:29And this is not clear for now?
02:31It's not very clear for most consumers and users.
02:35It's complicated for decision makers, IT directors, who have been used to work with the big companies, which are now
02:44offering as-a-service.
02:46And we've had three massive events.
02:50Trump's America First, COVID, and the war in Ukraine.
02:54All of which create a new instability, which means that if we do not control, it means we're dependent.
03:05Yes, of course.
03:06And how the regulation, the European regulation, can help the cloud actors to be more competitive?
03:16The regulator, and we're talking about the European regulator, probably, always comes too late.
03:24Way after the party is over.
03:27So, we've made progress.
03:30In the past, regulation came 10 years too late, and then it was a fine to be paid, a slap
03:36on the wrist, and it didn't change very much.
03:39Nowadays, we have the new regulation with the DSA, the DMA.
03:43Even GDPR is quite interesting.
03:45It doesn't solve sovereignty, but it actually protects our values as citizens in terms of our data.
03:51But the regulation is usually too late, is reactive, and not proactive.
03:57So, that is a problem.
04:00However, what needs to happen is a fundamental understanding that we need to shift the trend.
04:09Because the trend is not good.
04:11We are growing more dependent.
04:13So, we need to realize that we are not fixing the trend with the current regulation, and we need to
04:19do something else.
04:20Because the regulation can help, maybe, to fight against anti-competitive practices.
04:26Yes, but the notion of competition is still very old-fashioned.
04:33Because in the past, competition was measured as a function of market share.
04:37In fact, Margaret Vestager recently said, there is no competition problem.
04:43To which, we responded, the ecosystem responded, that is not true.
04:47Look here and there and there.
04:49It's complex because with the technologies of the cloud, with the technologies of the internet, market share is not like
04:59it used to be.
05:00There is a network effect where perhaps 30% is way too much market share already because of the network
05:11effects.
05:11And so, the regulator has to write their own software, rewrite their software, to preempt those situations.
05:19And when we look at the market right now, you have companies, mostly West Coast in the US, that dominate
05:26the market.
05:27So, there is competition between them.
05:29But together, they represent an oligopol.
05:33And this is one way to understand.
05:35We need to deconstruct it.
05:36And we need to create the conditions for the emergence of players from Europe to rebalance the equation.
05:44So, which conditions and what are the hurdles?
05:48The hurdles are not just for the cloud, by the way.
05:53So, we are here at VivaTech.
05:55We talk about startups.
05:56We talk about these companies that try to grow fast, capture parts of the market.
06:02And they are facing the same hurdles.
06:05This hurdle is called the open market.
06:10Because there is no balance.
06:12It's too small a market.
06:13It's a small market.
06:15But there is no reciprocity with the US.
06:17Again, America first.
06:19Because America now is no longer thinking of Europe as a natural partner.
06:25It's using us as a wallet to finance their America first position against China.
06:32So, as Europeans, we need to decide if we're okay with that.
06:35I'm not okay with that.
06:37So, the hurdles are the lack of reciprocity.
06:41The fact that our market is fragmented.
06:44And so, contrary to the policies of the open markets, we need more help.
06:51We actually need that word that cannot be pronounced in Europe.
06:56We need protectionism.
06:58Okay.
06:59But smart protectionism.
07:00It's not a taboo.
07:01It's actually compatible.
07:04And it's not only regulation.
07:06That is correct.
07:07Yeah.
07:07It's a number of policies that will help industries emerge.
07:13Once a player is big, that player doesn't need protectionism.
07:18So, that's the point.
07:20So, we need that sort of shift.
07:22And I think we're coming to it.
07:25Again, post-COVID, post-Ukraine, we need a little more autonomy, strategic autonomy.
07:32If you had to share a message with the public and also the private leaders who are participating here and
07:40remotely,
07:41what could you say to drive home the importance of data sovereignty?
07:48I think we need to think about our children.
07:52In other words, if we believe that there is a future in Europe
07:57and our children will be also taking advantage of what Europe has to offer,
08:03we need to think about value creation and value capture.
08:07Again, speaking about how to rebalance things.
08:10There is an article in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that says
08:15European regulations are starting to bother us
08:18because it's preventing us from taking money from European companies
08:23and creating jobs in the U.S.
08:25This is the mindset from a U.S. standpoint.
08:30The question is, what are we doing about it for ourselves?
08:34Do we have what it takes to create a framework
08:38where we're going to create value-added jobs here?
08:42We need to create those jobs here.
08:43We need to create systems that pay taxes in Europe
08:47because taxes, they pay for school.
08:49They pay for policies and the entire society.
08:53So my point is, we need to look hard about where we want to be 5, 10 years down the
09:00line
09:00and start acting today by changing the trend.
09:04This works for public policy and for large companies.
09:07I'm looking at all of you here.
09:09You are all decision makers in this process.
09:12But in that context, you decided to quit GaiaX project.
09:19You are now participating in Euclidea.
09:21So can you tell us why this project responds better to your vision of sovereignty?
09:28My conclusion by leaving GaiaX was that GaiaX started as something
09:35which at least projected us to create more sovereignty in terms of the cloud.
09:43There is no question about creating a sovereign cloud.
09:47There is no such thing.
09:48In the U.S., there are three clouds, and they are sovereign in the U.S.
09:52Scaleway is a cloud provider in France.
09:55Scaleway is sovereign in France.
09:57There is no question about this.
09:59But GaiaX started off as promising more sovereignty.
10:03In the end, GaiaX is not at all working on sovereignty.
10:07It's working on data spaces and this layer that provides data sovereignty,
10:14not technology sovereignty.
10:16And so as a cloud provider, I have no business in it.
10:20In fact, I would go even further.
10:22All of the cloud providers in GaiaX should be kicked out.
10:28GaiaX should be built by the companies that create the data.
10:32And they should define how that data is protected.
10:34And there should be no interference from big cloud providers from the U.S.
10:40or small cloud providers in Europe.
10:42So for you, it's two subjects, two different subjects, in fact.
10:46Absolutely.
10:47And that's why I joined and created with another 10 technology companies, Euclidia,
10:55which aims to promote European software in the cloud, for the cloud,
11:02because we have this ability.
11:04There is a myth that Europe is behind.
11:08That myth is a lie.
11:09We need to deconstruct it.
11:12Europe and European technology providers have all it takes to actually provide what we need.
11:19Okay, I have a last question for you, Yann Lechelle.
11:23What are the most meaningful changes in regulation that could transform really the tech landscape?
11:34I think, well, this is not for me to say because I am not a regulator.
11:38I know that.
11:39This is not my job.
11:40So I'm working really hard to, and I've been an entrepreneur for the past 20 years.
11:45So I know very well the difficulty it is to grow and scale and access the markets,
11:53working with large companies and working with the public sector.
11:56So the regulators, as I said, probably should work on this notion of how do we protect smaller players?
12:03How do we do more purchasing of their solution?
12:09But I think we can use that in a way that does not require regulation.
12:13In a way, we do the RAC, right, the CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility.
12:20We do it about sustainability.
12:22Well, we should do it also, I don't like the term sovereignty because sovereignty is dangerous
12:27in a way that also could mean sovereignism.
12:30But imagine we had a sovereignty index that every corporate buyer would have an index
12:38based on the amount of purchasing it does from within Europe.
12:43And that index could be used to create a positive trend.
12:48And that does not require a regulation.
12:52Thank you very much for this insight.
12:55Yann Lechelle.
12:56Yann Lechelle, you are the CEO of Scaleway.
12:58Thank you very much.
13:00In a couple of minutes, we are going to start another session,
13:04a new session around a new question, the question of many of us.
13:08This is maybe the future of the Internet.
13:11We will look at what it will look like.
13:14So stay with us to explore this subject together.
13:19Until by then, thank you very much for your presence today.
13:22And remotely, of course, see you next.
13:25Bye for now.
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