CM.com will use VOLT’s AI infrastructure to offer solutions for various sectors with sovereignty requirements. Banks, insurers, government agencies, and healthcare institutions will gain access to sovereign, modern IT solutions through this collaboration.
The two companies are combining VOLT’s AI data centers, including the planned AI Gigafactory in Rotterdam with a powerful GPU infrastructure, with CM.com’s AI application platform. This will enable organizations to develop, train, and scale AI applications in full compliance with European regulations.
CM.com CEO Jeroen van Glabbeek states that the joint solution is inspired by, among others, the German Delos Cloud and the Open Telekom Cloud. Data sovereignty, compliance, and energy efficiency are central promises, just as they are in those projects. The services will become available in the course of this year.
From cloud-first to control-first
“Risks surrounding data, legislation, and dependence on foreign technology are hindering innovation,” says Van Glabbeek. By bringing together hardware, infrastructure, and AI software in an integrated European AI infrastructure, the partners say they are making it possible to apply AI safely and responsibly at scale.
“Our AI Gigafactory forms the backbone of this new generation of European AI infrastructure,” says Han de Groot, CEO of VOLT. According to Van Glabbeek, in combination with CM.com’s AI platform, this creates a fully-fledged, end-to-end alternative for organizations that want to maintain control over their data and technology.
Template becomes clear
The VOLT architecture is based on five infrastructural layers. The most fundamental of these is the hardware itself, or the physical data centers. Next comes the computing power, referred to in VOLT terminology as the Compute & GPU Layer. On top of that, the platform is equipped with orchestration, AI models and services, and finally a layer that guarantees security and compliance.
This last layer is a mixture of regulations (GDPR compliance and ESG reporting, for example) and actual protection. Think of direct fiber optic connections with customers, so that the infrastructure in the data center is actually part of the protected corporate network.
The combination of ambitious AI infrastructure and compliance resources has only become more relevant. Although the promises surrounding AI have not yet been fulfilled in everyone’s perception, we are certainly seeing a degree of maturity in its deployment. Think of multi-agent systems, protocols, and best practices that deliver results in terms of efficiency and error sensitivity.
Nevertheless, we also know that sovereign architectures are demanding. It will therefore be difficult for potential customers of CM.com and VOLT to come up with an exit strategy for the combined solution. Delos Cloud and Open Telekom Cloud are cited as examples, but there are not yet many other sovereign cloud options of European or national origin. Offering a mature solution without the American hyperscalers remains a task that few are willing to take on.