Amsterdam lets KPN deliver private cloud: 'reduce dependence on big tech'

The municipality of Amsterdam has concluded a cloud contract worth 74 million euros with KPN. It concerns the provision of private cloud services. The municipality wants to become less dependent on large, non-European tech companies.

KPN will provide a private cloud for the municipality of Amsterdam for five years. This is a cloud environment in which the IT resources (such as computing power, storage space and network capacity) are exclusively available to a single customer, in this case Amsterdam. This gives the customer more control over matters such as performance level, but also security and privacy. The data in such a private cloud is therefore often more sensitive than the data in a public cloud. The contract includes applications and systems for benefits, permits and care provision, reports the Domestic Administration on the basis of the Financieele Dagblad.

Councilor Alexander Scholtes of ICT calls the collaboration with KPN 'a step towards a sovereign government and a strong European tech sector'. According to him, this proves that 'through tenders and contracts we can aim for more control over our digital infrastructure and less dependence on a small number of large, non-European tech companies'. The new sovereign cloud from KPN and Schwarz Digits will be available from mid-2027.

KPN previously provided public cloud services for Amsterdam, but the municipality stopped doing so last year, because KPN was still using the Microsoft Azure platform. The Dutch capital then joined forces with Solvinity, because that company could deliver a fully European cloud. That was before it was announced that Solvinity would be taken over by an American party, although the Dutch government has now put a stop to the planned takeover.

Amsterdam considers digital sovereignty very important

It has been clear for some time that Amsterdam wants to become less dependent on big tech. Earlier this year, the municipality presented a Multi-Year Digital Autonomy Strategy, in which Amsterdam indicated that it wanted to replace more and more American services with European alternatives in the coming years. The capital is running a pilot with Nextcloud and wants to purchase less cloud storage from SharePoint. The municipality wants at least 30 percent of the cloud storage services and applications used to be hosted by Dutch or European suppliers within five years.