Thales and Google Cloud announce strategic partnership to jointly develop a Trusted Cloud offering in France

By Edlyn Cardoza

Thales and Google Cloud recently announced a strategic agreement to co-develop a sovereign hyper-scale cloud offering for France. Operated by a joint company with Thales as the majority shareholder, it will meet the French ‘Trusted Cloud’ criteria. With this new offering, French companies and public sector organisations will benefit from all the power, security, flexibility, agility, and sovereignty offered by the respective technologies of the two organisations. 

By addressing the highest legal and technical requirements for ‘Trusted Cloud’, the Thales and Google Cloud offering will enable private and public sector organisations who need to meet the criteria – defined by France’s Information Systems Security Agency (ANSSI)2 – to benefit from cloud computing services, in accordance with the country’s sovereign cloud strategy. 

The joint offer of Thales and Google Cloud is based on each partner’s most advanced technologies and services. Google Cloud’s services, which will be enhanced and complemented with new innovations regularly, will bring elasticity, agility and technological openness, enabling companies to innovate transparently and autonomously, without vendor lock-in. 

Thales, a leader in cybersecurity for more than 40 years, will bring the necessary guarantees of France’s sovereignty requirements by ensuring the management of encryption keys, access, identities, and cyber threat monitoring with its Cybersecurity Operations Center. Thales thus provides the levels of trust and of security required from French customers so that they can migrate their most sensitive applications to the cloud while maintaining control. 

“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 organisations 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 organisations in France. Our unique approach to addressing the concerns of French citizens and government bodies, including the development of a new company, ensures organisations 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 SecNumCloud repository 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).

Recently, IBS Intelligence reported that Thales on its first Investor Day dedicated to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues, presented its new roadmap for a low carbon future and explained how its advanced technologies are helping make the world safer, more environmentally responsible and more inclusive.