Thales and Google Cloud Announce Strategic Partnership to Jointly Develop a Trusted Cloud Offering in France

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

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) – 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 the most advanced technologies and services of each partner. 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.

French companies and public sector institutions will be able to benefit from a set of hyperscale cloud services that are:

• Operated by a dedicated, newly formed company under French law, held in majority by Thales;
• Hosted in France, within infrastructure that is separate from Google Cloud, with a separate network and servers controlled and operated by the new company;
• Supported locally by the new company, ensuring customer service is handled in France;
• Locally secured with identity management, data encryption, administration and supervision being provided by the new company;
• Regularly enhanced via rolling software updates that are evaluated and validated within a security sandbox managed by Thales; and
• Managed on a sustainably developed infrastructure.

Marc Darmon, Executive Vice President, Secure Communications and Information Systems at Thales, said, “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.”

Thomas Kurian, CEO at Google Cloud, said, “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.”

“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.)