conversations about AI compute. Finally, we sense-checked our selection with experts in AI and cloud policy and devel ­opment . Our data set covers both neocloud companies(n=13) and conventional cloud companies(n=6) providers, and con ­siders market share, market presence and political salience (e. g. whether they are involved in digital sovereignty part­nerships). 8 In Table 2 below, you will find an overview of AI cloud companies included in our analysis. 9 As this is explor­atory research based on publicly available data on 19 pro ­viders in a rapidly evolving and highly opaque market, the findings should not to be read as comprehensive summary of the European AI cloud landscape, but rather as a sample to illuminate broader patterns in this market. All 19 sampled countries have a current or planned EU presence in terms of AI cloud availability. Across the 13 neocloud companies included, 8 are headquartered in the EU(Genesis Cloud, Verda, Scaleway, Sesterce, Mistral Com­pute, Nebul, Taiga Cloud and Nebius), while 5 are head ­quartered outside the European Union(Vast.ai, NScale, Fluidstack, CoreWeave and Crusoe). 10 These include the world’s largest neocloud providers by global market share: CoreWeave, Crusoe(which are US companies), and Nebius (which is a Dutch company, formerly European branch of the Russian cloud provider Yandex). The remaining 6 com ­panies fall into the category of conventional cloud provid­ers, which have their headquarters in Europe(UpCloud, Exoscale, Hetzner, OVHCloud, GCore Labs and IONOS). Additionally, a significant proportion of Europe-operating neoclouds appear to be pursuing differentiation strategies through a geographic shift towards the Nordics. Of the 19 companies surveyed, 14 companies have cloud capacity in the Nordics with Finland(n=8), Iceland(n=4), Norway (n=8) and Sweden(n=6). 2.2 Market strategies An analysis of these providers’ market strategies, funding and product offerings reveals four approaches used to carve out a sustainable and regionally significant niche (see Table 3) : → Specialisation: sovereign AI, niche markets and ­sustainability → Upgrading: start-ups/SMEs, full-stack → Consolidation: corporations, sovereigns → Market place: platform, aggregators Rather than a set of fixed strategies, these are often com­bined by specific neoclouds across various gradients based on their company objectives. Alternative AI cloud companies pursuing a market strategy of specialisation are carving out niche markets outside of US hyperscale cloud providers. Such niche markets include a focus on sovereign AI capabilities; companies like Verda, Sesterce and Nebul emphasise European sovereign cloud and divestment from US infrastructure, through data cen­tres located in European jurisdictions, GDPR-compliant architectures and full-stack control. For example, Sesterce positions itself as the‘third way between hyperscalers and inaction’, explicitly arguing that it is building‘the backbone of European AI independence’ 11 , with a€52 bn investment project to build a total of 1.5 GW of sovereign computation ­al power.’ 12 The primary target for specialisation compa­nies are sovereign and highly regulated industries, on the premise that these sectors will absorb the friction and cost associated with migrating from hyperscalers. Firms with a presence in the Nordics(Genesis, Verda, etc.) are also focus­ing on sustainability as a competitive advantage, with an emphasis on environmentally friendly data centre locations. Upgrading strategies refer to efforts to move away from the provision of bare computers to more high value-added services. First, companies seek to explicitly target SMEs and start-ups to create long-term customer relationships. Another strategy is to move up the value chain to provide full-stack services. One key provider is the French compa­ny Scaleway, which provides computational capacity for several French-headquartered AI companies, such as Kyutai, Mistral AI and H Company. Scaleway provides full­scale AI solutions and seeks to avoid becoming solely used for computational capacity. New entrants are also emerging in this field: in June 2025, Mistral AI, the most prominent large-scale AI developer in Europe, announced it was pivoting to a cloud infrastructure company. 13 Under the label of‘Mistral Compute’, the company offers cus­tomers‘GPUs, orchestration, APIs, products and services in whatever form factor they need’, expanding from‘bare-­metal servers to fully managed PaaS.’ Partnering with selected European enterprise customers, the company teamed up with UK-headquartered Fluidstack to expand a 100 MW data centre in Essonne, France(Business Wire 2025), although, as per Bloomberg reporting, Fluidstack is backtracking on this investment(Berthelot 2026). Mistral AI also announced plans for a separate data centre in Par­is with over 1.4 GW of capacity, in partnership with the 8  Variables included in the dataset(collected in November 2025) are as follows: Provider, Location(HQ), Date Founded(Year), Net Worth(Revenue), Geographic Presence of Data Centres(Location, Number and MW), Chip Types and Capacity(Name and Number), Product Offerings(Description), Corporate-State Collaborations(Description), Known Customers(Description) and Business Strategy(Description). 9  Our analysis is limited by data availability. As there is limited market data on the EU neocloud market analysis, our data collection is often descriptive rather than standardised. Where the AI cloud segment of a company is unavailable, we infer data from the total cloud share. 10  In contrast to previous sections´ broader focus on AI cloud in Europe, for this section´s analysis of neoclouds we explicitly distinguish between the neoclouds that are headquar­tered in the EU and those that are not. This is relevant, because the next sections will examine to what extent neoclouds can help advance the EU´s ambitions for AI sovereignty. 11  https://www.sesterce.com/blog/a-third-path-for-ai-sovereignty-beyond-hyperscalers-and-inaction(last accessed on 23 April 2026). 12  https://www.sesterce.com/blog/building-france-s-ai-backbone-by-2030(last accessed on 23 April 2026). 13  https://mistral.ai/news/mistral-compute(last accessed on 23 April 2026. 16 Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung e.V.