EUCLIDIA:
the European Cloud Industrial Alliance

Fostering innovation in the European cloud space.

Who we are

The European Cloud Industrial Alliance (EUCLIDIA) is an industry alliance made up of SMEs active in the cloud industry. Members are cloud SMEs that develop and supply hardware or software for IaaS, PaaS or SaaS, and which are majority owned by European-based shareholders.

Our Vision

Context

Europe has a long and proud history of successful technological innovation and building strong companies and eco-systems. The continent also has a number of successful and highly advanced SMEs within the cloud space, which represents a new breed of cloud suppliers, born in an edge-native era where software is at the centre of the business, and open source and collaboration is part of the DNA.

Yet in last decades the centre of gravity for innovation has moved to the West and the East. Some of the fastest growing companies in the cloud sector have over the past decades come from the US and Asia.

Much of this context is shared with the telecom industry and was inspired by the European Association of Next Generation Innovators (EANGTI).

The challenge

The last decade’s trend of US and Asian cloud companies growing more rapidly than European companies can be changed. Young and innovative SMEs can and should play a key part in fuelling European innovation. Europe needs to strengthen its SME ecosystem through dedicated support – allowing innovation and technological assets to stay in Europe and contribute to innovation, digital sovereignty and competitiveness. For that to happen, these companies must continue to develop and grow within the European context, rather than being acquired by companies from other parts of the world.

The acquisition of European innovators by foreign companies leads to European know how, technology and assets being siphoned off to other regions. This trend is highly prevalent in the cloud industry. The innovation power of cloud SMEs needs to be recognized and supported as it will allow Europe to build a more-cost effective and innovative cloud infrastructure and healthy eco-systems. This will foster the development of use cases ranging from big data edge cloud platforms to effective IoT applications for smaller enterprises and municipalities.

Misson and Objectives

Our mission is to allow Europe to continue to reap the benefits of innovation and technological assets developed within the continent. EUCLIDIA is dedicated to highlighting the opportunity in creating a strong eco-system and SME-friendly environment that fosters innovation.

Our objectives are:

  • Deepening the understanding of SMEs’ role and importance in Europe in driving R&D and innovation and ensure that European SMEs have a voice.
  • Encouraging collaboration between industry players, regulators and other relevant actors, in order to secure an independent European technology eco-system.
  • Promoting the capabilities and opportunities of next generation distributed edge cloud, and creating dedicated SME-based showcases and deployments of relevant technologies.

What we do

EUCLIDIA is active in the following advocacy areas:

Co-creation

Joint effort across industry players to develop a new generation of services and deployments for underserved markets.

Public/private collaborations

Joint efforts across private and public players to develop eco-system and use cases.

Flag of Europe

Dedicated government and/or EU funding to SME projects & deployments

  • Pursue funding to build 10+ distributed edge cloud platforms in Europe, which are a 100% built and/or supplied by European SMEs.
  • Examples can include bringing Big Data platforms to industrial clusters or deploying Platform as a Service on university campuses to support research and development around distributed edge cloud.
  • Supplier diversification – require Europe's large corporations and governments to spend 10% of annual CapEx and Opex on European SMEs.

Availability of data

  • Open Data – enable SMEs to build public data hubs based on data collected by governments
  • Shared Data – enable SMEs to build neutral data hubs where utility companies do not see any business case 
  • Personal Data – enable SMEs to build innovative data science based on  federated access while ensuring that personal data does not leave Europe