EDITOR ’ S QUESTION
Data mistrust has been a growing phenomenon for years and governments have reacted accordingly . Whether through GDPR , the EU ’ s Digital Markets Act or the upcoming Digital Services Act , we are seeing a growing legislative focus on data collection and usage .
Typically , the chief concerns around data ( and data mistrust ) in Europe are centred around anticompetition and big tech , privacy and data sovereignty .
Honing in on the latter , data sovereignty is the principle that individual countries can regulate the storage of data within their borders . This will enable more stringent security and privacy practices and will offer more transparency over how data is collected and handled by organisations in order to combat data mistrust .
The chief concerns around data ( and data mistrust ) in Europe are centred around anti-competition and big tech , privacy and data sovereignty .
However , sovereignty laws mean that providers will have to front the construction cost of building local centres and they ’ ll also need to account for the long-term financial drain caused by new overheads like more expensive power and cooling . That ’ s not to mention the need to pay more workers to operate these data centres , along with things like dealing with the local regulatory environment .
In practice , data sovereignty legislation will also mean that organisations will struggle to store data internationally or collect data from international clients . This will add a new dimension to cloud storage , as organisations will need to secure individual user permissions to process any data outside the country where the data was initially collected . Given that this will be difficult or impossible to do , companies will be forced to look at more local cloud storage options .
Local cloud storage , in turn , will inevitably be more expensive for most European businesses . Forcing data storage into local centres will require storage providers to build more local centres . This comes with several up-front and long-term costs .
For many providers who do not have the cash reserves of the hyperscalers to use as a cushion , this will likely mean pushing these additional costs onto their customers . Economically , this will make significant waves for both businesses and consumers .
Currently , cloud storage is taking over the corporate world . Year on year we are seeing the amount of data stored in the cloud grow exponentially and much of this growth is driven by business data storage . While data mistrust is an important phenomenon that is worthy of legislative attention , legislative attention comes with a financial cost that must be prepped for and managed accordingly . p
Not only will the construction fees affect storage providers , but they will also lose other financial advantages that currently help keep spending down . Having one big data centre is less expensive than having several small ones , especially if that one big data centre is in a location with cheap power and accessible cooling .
DAVID FRIEND , CO-FOUNDER AND CEO OF
WASABI TECHNOLOGIES
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