French defence firm Thales creates new firm with Google

PARIS Reuters -- French defence company Thales said on Thursday it has created a new firm called S 3 NS in partnership with Google to offer state-vetted cloud computing services for the storage of some of the country's most sensitive data.

The new company is a result of an alliance between Thales, Europe's largest defence electronics supplier, and the Alphabet unit after a government plan in which France acknowledged U.S. technological superiority.

Google and Microsoft, together with market leader Amazon.com's Amazon Web Services, dominate cloud computing worldwide, leading to concerns in Europe over the risk of surveillance by the United States.

The French government said cloud computing services developed by Google and Microsoft could be used to store France's most sensitive state and corporate data if data centres are located in the country and services are licensed to French companies.

S 3 NS is majority-owned by Thales, which has full control over the commercialisation of services developed by Google, it said. Google hasn't disclosed its stake.

Some of the biggest banks and healthcare organisations in France are among 40 potential customers of the new company, according to Marc Darmon, the head of secure communications and information systems at the company.

S 3 NS' cloud services will be available in the second half of 2024, after it gets the blessing of France's ANSSI via a so-called trusted cloud label, Thales said.

Thales said that the company will operate three France-based data centers on which Google's vetted and secured cloud services will be run.

S 3 NS will compete against Bleu, a joint company set up by IT consulting firm Capgemini and telecoms group Orange by the end of the year, which aims to use Microsoft's cloud technology.