Thales and Google Cloud announce partnership to co-develop cloud offering in France

Thales and Google Cloud announced a strategic partnership to co-develop a sovereign hyper scale cloud offering for France. It will be operated by a joint venture with Thales as the largest stakeholder, and it will fulfill the French ‘Trusted Cloud’ requirements. With this new service, French enterprises and government entities will get access to all of the power, security, flexibility, agility, and sovereignty provided by the two organizations’ respective technology.

The Thales and Google Cloud offering will enable private and public sector organizations that need to meet the criteria – defined by France’s Information Systems Security Agency (ANSSI) – to benefit from cloud computing services in accordance with the country’s sovereign cloud strategy, by addressing the highest legal and technical requirements for ‘Trusted Cloud.’ Thales and Google Cloud’s joint offering is based on each company’s most advanced technology and services. Google Cloud’s services, which will be continually updated and supplemented with new breakthroughs, will provide elasticity, agility, and technological openness, allowing businesses to create transparently and autonomously without vendor lock-in.

With its Cybersecurity Operations Center, Thales, a leader in cybersecurity for more than 40 years, will provide the required guarantees of France’s sovereignty needs by ensuring the administration of encryption keys, access, identities, and cyber threat monitoring. Thales meets the trust and security requirements of French customers, allowing them to move their most sensitive applications to the cloud while keeping control.

A collection of hyperscale cloud services will be available to French businesses and government entities, including:

– run by a special, newly constituted corporation under French law, with Thales as the largest shareholder;

– hosted in France, on infrastructure distinct from Google Cloud, with a separate network and servers managed and administered by the new firm;

– the new company will provide local assistance, guaranteeing that customer service is handled in France;

-The new organisation will provide identity management, data encryption, administration, and oversight on a local level;

– is continuously improved through rolling software updates that are evaluated and validated in a Thales-managed security sandbox; and

– managed on a long-term infrastructure development.

“To adapt to the diversity of our customers’ cloud needs, Thales offers a wide range of options with partners in its ecosystem. Thanks to this unique collaboration with Google Cloud, we will be able to help power the digital transformation for organizations of all sizes and industries that want to keep control and sovereignty over their data and that of their customers. Together, we will address the criteria defined by the government for a trusted cloud, as well as environmental goals with a sustainable approach for the infrastructure we will build,” said Marc Darmon, Executive Vice President, Secure Communications and Information Systems at Thales.

“Thales and Google Cloud have a joint vision to deliver the most innovative and trusted solutions to companies and public sector organizations in France. Our unique approach to addressing the concerns of French citizens and government bodies, including the development of a new company, ensures organizations can benefit from the innovation and agility of the cloud, without compromising on the security, privacy and sovereignty required by the French government,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO at Google Cloud.

“The government’s national cloud strategy clearly specifies the state’s willingness to use and promote high-performance and trusted cloud offerings. The challenge is to have the widest possible range of solutions compliant with the SecNumCloudrepository which details the technical, operational and legal security rules capable of effectively protecting data and processes hosted in a cloud service. ANSSI therefore enthusiastically welcomes this ambitious project that meets these criteria,” said Guillaume Poupard, Director General of the National Information Systems Security Agency (ANSSI.)