According to insider information it gleaned, several companies made an offer, including Microsoft and Google. Both had lobbied strongly, offering their services free of charge, according to organisational insiders known to Handelsblatt.
After a long selection process, Gaia-X board bypassed the products from the hyperscalers and selected a European-developed and hosted collaboration platform. The Gaia-X members will collaborate on the next generation, independent and federated infrastructure for Europe using Nextcloud, the most popular on-premises content collaboration platform, hosted at Europe’s largest hosting provider, IONOS.
As a large and diversified European endeavor, Gaia-X was looking for a flexible, functionally complete, and European-based collaboration platform that integrates well with other tools. Nextcloud facilitates extensive cross-organisational collaboration for us in a secure and compliant way.
— Francesco Bonfiglio, CEO of Gaia-X AISBL
This decision by Gaia-X is a great step forward for digital sovereignty in Europe.