NEW ETNO POSITION PAPER ON Edge Cloud and Strategic Capacity Building in the EU Policy Context on Cloud

The pressures of the pandemic have shown the importance of a reliable and secure digital infrastructure and the need to avoid dependencies in strategic supply chains. Next to communication networks, cloud services form a critical part of the infrastructure that enables the proper functioning of our economies and societies in an increasingly digitized world. For the European Union, access to secure and state-of-the-art cloud infrastructure has therefore become a crucial policy objective to support the Union’s digital ambitions and to facilitate the data economy.
 
The increasing attention from policymakers has led to the emergence of what can be described as the first comprehensive set of regulations and initiatives aimed at the cloud market in Europe. Several initiatives with an impact on the cloud are either already adopted (DMA, NIS-Directive), currently being prepared (IPCEI CIS, EUCS, Data Act) or are yet to be proposed (Cloud Rulebook, Cloud Marketplace, Data Act sector-specific regulations).

Amidst this rapidly evolving policy landscape, this paper aims to explain what edge cloud is, why it is relevant, and how it fits into the larger EU policy context. In addition, this paper elaborates on the unique role of European telecommunication providers in delivering an edge-cloud continuum.