The effectiveness of the Cloud and AI Development Act regarding data centres

Annelieke Mooij, Assistant Professor, Tilburg Law School Photo: Facebook Clonee (Ireland) data centre Photo credit: Thomas Nugent, via Wikimedia commons 1. Introduction The debate about sovereignty and specifically digital sovereignty is fierce. Member States, struggle to achieve digital sovereignty which impacts the continuity and safety of the digital services. To speed up the realization of the sovereign cloud the Commission has proposed a new act the Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA). The act covers three important facets: AI, Cloud and Data centres. This contribution is limited to the proposed rules regarding data centres and analyze their effectiveness. The proposed Regulation should not be considered a stand-alone Regulation but rather forms part of the European Union’s broader strategy to strengthen digital sovereignty. The EU aims to reduce dependence on foreign digital service providers and expand Europe’s cloud and data centre capacity. At its core, the proposed…