Dutch central bank ditches AWS and chooses Lidl for European Cloud

Source: Hacker News

De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) will sign a major contract tomorrow with Schwarz Digits, the IT arm of Lidl owner Schwarz Group. DNB aims to reduce its dependence on American cloud companies and, as a major Dutch organization, is opting for a European partner.

Sales Director Bernd Wagner announced the news on Monday at the Hannover Messe, according to De Telegraaf. The move itself comes as no surprise. DNB Director Steven Maijoor announced last October that he intended to “set a good example” and switch to a European cloud, though he acknowledged that it “is not yet as robust or high‑quality as the one from the U.S.”.

The consideration is whether a European alternative can meet the organization’s requirements. Lidl’s platform has been in development for years, while Amazon, Google, and Microsoft benefit from up to 20 years of development work. The transition to European alternatives does not always go smoothly, as evidenced by Schleswig‑Holstein, where the local government is struggling with migration from Microsoft to an open‑source environment.

Large organizations already use Lidl’s cloud, including Lidl itself, the German supermarket chain Kaufland, and Deutsche Bahn, which collaborates with the Schwarz Group. Now a Dutch organization from a highly regulated sector is opting for this cloud.

Concerns about cloud dependency

Last year, the Dutch Central Bank (DNB) and the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) warned that the Dutch financial sector had become too dependent on foreign IT service providers, particularly American ones. Geopolitical tensions amplified these concerns—for example, a prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague was cut off from his Microsoft email account by President Donald Trump. The ICC is now also switching to non‑American systems.

When issuing that warning, DNB admitted that it itself is largely dependent on American service providers for its digital infrastructure.

Schwarz Digits and Stackit

Schwarz Digits, via the Stackit cloud platform, has long positioned itself as a European alternative to American hyperscalers. The Lidl‑owned company is building a sovereign cloud where all data falls under European law, setting it apart from American providers that, under the Cloud Act, must hand over data to U.S. authorities. Schwarz Digits recently announced an investment of €11 billion in a large data centre in Lübbenau.

The project originally began as an internal IT system for Lidl and Kaufland, but it is now attracting external clients, including SAP and Bayern Munich. Together with Deutsche Telekom, it is working on broader European IT alternatives.

A spokesperson for DNB confirmed concerns about cloud dependency on Monday but declined to comment on individual contracts. “That is why, with every new step toward the cloud, we explicitly assess geopolitical risks and explore how we can reduce our dependency,” the spokesperson said.