Airbus selects Iliad’s Scaleway to host AI and defence cloud applications

Airbus announced a multi‑year agreement with Iliad‑owned cloud provider Scaleway to supply infrastructure for sensitive industrial and defence workloads. The partnership will support AI tools developed with French startup Mistral, with Scaleway hosting critical applications across aircraft design, engineering, production and corporate operations. Airbus Chief Digital Officer Catherine Jestin said, “The fact that the Mistral models are already deployed on Scaleway infrastructure will allow us to accelerate our AI approach.” The company plans to migrate around 70 critical applications to Scaleway by the end of 2028, with a broader programme that could cover up to 900 applications over the next five to six years. The deal reflects a push for European digital sovereignty, with Airbus citing legal requirements such as protection against a “kill switch” and extraterritorial laws. The European Commission has recently proposed a Cloud and AI Development Act to expand domestic cloud capacity. Financial terms were not disclosed.