The Upsides & Downsides of Public Cloud for European AI 2025

The rapid evolution of AI capabilities has led technical executive teams across Europe to explore public AI platforms, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft Co-Pilot, AWS Bedrock, Google Gemini or Deep Seek.

While these platforms offer substantial functionality and flexibility, especially for experimentation, they also come with significant structural downsides for AI and data that European businesses leaders must consider and address.

Advantages of Public Cloud for AI

· Hardware and software pre-configured for AI development and production. Public cloud providers offer a range of AI tools and frameworks.

· Flexibility in experimentation: AI teams can quickly prototype and test different models without being constrained by hardware limitations, enabling rapid iterations.

· Unified consumption model: if you’re already utilizing public cloud for other services.

Public Cloud AI infrastructure and Public AI services are relatively easy and convenient to utilize for small scale experiments with test data. But when you’re serious about deploying AI with any form of (European) sensitive data / for highly regulated markets, complex compliance, governance and legislation challenges will arise.

Additionally you have the advantage of pre-defined tools and optimizations, which are proprietary and thus can be relatively simple to pass through a workflow.

 

Challenges of using Public Cloud for AI

Lack of true European data sovereignty:

· Public clouds lack the sovereignty required for authentic European data considerations and AI processing, including

o European data locality,

o European operations (staffing)

o European control (service provider ownership)

· Further, any US owned Public Cloud Service will be directly subject to the US Cloud Act, which allows US agencies to access any data on the platform, independent of global data location.

· Current geo-political events (as of March 2025) are causing concern, especially among European governments, municipalities and any European orgs with sensitive or regulated data. The concern is the US Cloud Act can be used to intercept any of the data stored on these US owned Public Cloud Services.

· GDPR, PII considerations

High costs:

· Public cloud GPU services are typically 2-3 times more expensive than dedicated (private cloud) alternatives and on-prem. For businesses with unpredictable usage or large AI models in use, cloud expenses can exceed expectations.

Latency issues:

· Although public cloud platforms have a global presence, depending on where the data centers are located, users might experience latency issues. Often, these platforms are relatively slow, utilizing standard servers without specialized high-performance networking or optimized data processing capabilities. Inherent bottlenecks constrain GPU capabilities.

Inadequate support:

– Without proper technical support, teams may struggle to complete tasks efficiently. It may lead to delays and reduced productivity.

Limited control over your infrastructure:

· The typical scenario is that a public cloud providers manage the underlaying infrastructure and apply all security measure themselves. While it could be convenient for the user, there is also a risk that the cloud environments don’t meet specific security standards for sensitive data, where most customers assume it’s already covered.

Structural lack of enterprise GPU platform availability:

· Most Enterprise GPUs are in the US regions, and wait times are long and inconsistent. Also, when GPUs become scarce, their prices often increase for SPOT instances. The competition for GPUs also intensifies during shortages, making it even more difficult to secure the hardware needed.

Corporate bias in LLM Training:

· The training of language models can be biased towards the interests of the corporations that develop and host them. This issue could manifest in multiple ways. Bias in language, ideology, or even specific corporate interests as an example. US (and Chinese) corporations have shown to display overt political and social bias in their specific AI model offerings.

 

 

The European-Native AI Cloud

For European companies seeking a compliant, cost-effective, and highest-performance AI solution, the Nebul European Private & Sovereign AI Cloud services is the answer:

EU Sovereign data compliance:

· Adheres to GDPR and other EU data regulations like EU operations, ownership, data governance and compliance for sensitive data types. GDPR, ISO ISO270001, NIS2 NEN7510, EU AI Act compliant.

NVIDIA – powered performance and support:

· Built on NVIDIA reference architecture, featuring the world’s fastest GPUs (H100s, H200s and B200s). As an official NVIDIA Elite Cloud Service Provider, DGX Cloud Partner and DGX Solution Provider.

Cost efficiency:

· At least 50-75% savings compared to public cloud services, with flat, predictable monthly costs. Boost your cloud performance and save money on your cloud bill simultaneously. No hidden I/O or traffic fees. No overpayment and billing surprises anymore. No more egress charges.

Unmatched speed of processing:

· Provides specialized networking and data storage systems for fastest possible AI processing, which improves time-to-value, time to market and reduces costs.

Relentless (human) support:

· Ensures immediate availability of AI hardware in Europe with seamless onboarding and tech support. Our AI experts help you deploy, secure, and optimize your AI project.

 

Private AI for your projects

Nebul’s Private Sovereign AI Cloud has been specifically designed for the European AI development and production workloads. We set standards for maximum utilization, efficiency and performance for AI development and inference production in Europe.

Protect your sensitive data and ensure privacy by choosing private AI solutions. Don’t risk exposing your valuable information and take control of your data.

Get in touch with our AI team to explore our private AI options that prioritize security, confidentiality, and peace of mind for your team as well as your clients.

hello@nebul.com