Study funded by tech industry estimates €115 billion cost for EU cloud rules

A research report by ECIPE, funded by the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), examines the potential costs of the European Commission's proposed Cloud and AI Development Act (CADA). The study models three scenarios for the period between 2027 and 2036, with a middle-case estimate of €115 billion. The costs stem from migrating workloads, rewriting software, and higher cloud prices resulting from stricter sovereignty requirements.

CADA cost modeling details

• The study models three scenarios: narrow (€35.6 billion), middle (€115 billion), and broad (€233 billion).
• In the middle scenario, 20% of affected workloads fall into the strictest tiers.
• Approximately 69% of costs are attributed to provider migration and software rewriting.
• Roughly 30% of costs are linked to increased ongoing cloud pricing.
• The study notes that moving services is not a simple 'fork and forget' process because applications built around specific provider services often require rebuilding.

Why it matters

The report highlights the tension between the EU's goal of digital sovereignty and the economic burden of compliance for both public and private sectors.