NATO’s thumbs-up for AWS shows Europe still needs America

NATO personnel participated in the Locked Shields exercise in Kalkar, Germany, on April 13, 2026. Oliver Berg/picture alliance via Getty Images

The company has become the first cloud provider to win approval to handle sensitive data for all alliance members.

Amazon Web Services has become the first cloud provider cleared to handle sensitive information for all NATO members, underscoring that an increasingly independent Europe still relies on capabilities made in America, and suggesting that it's not as hard for U.S. firms to compete there as the White House insists.

The company announced on Tuesday that it has received alliance approval to handle information at the NATO RESTRICTED level, which is not classified but requires safeguarding.

As European militaries fuse radar, satellite, and even acoustic information to more easily detect Russian drones and other threats , NATO-approved rapid data and information sharing is critical.

AWS, which already handles sensitive military and intelligence data for many NATO members, beat its competitors—primarily from other U.S. cloud providers such as Microsoft—to win the alliance’s first blanket approval. That’s the result of “a sustained, multi-year effort,” David Appel, acting vice president of Worldwide Public Sector at AWS, said in the company’s Tuesday statement, AWS worked with Spain’s National Cryptographic Centre, or CCN, to test its services against NATO security directives; CCN then shared its findings to all member states.

The announcement also reflects a broad , evolving NATO digital transformation strategy. The alliance is eager to incorporate more commercial information technology into its coordination and planning. And AWS remains the biggest commercial cloud operator in Europe, with nine data-center clusters, or regions, across Europe, including the U.K.

“Strengthening NATO’s ability to securely leverage commercial technology is key to building a more resilient and agile Alliance,” according to Dylan Browne, general manager of the NATO Communications and Information Agency, or NCIA, as quoted in Amazon’s statement.

While NATO members and AWS cloud users across Europe will be able to share their data more easily, they will also be able to retain control over it. The 2024 European Union Data Act requires cloud providers to protect EU data from other governments, including the United States. Practically speaking , that means housing data on European soil beyond the reach of U.S. court orders, although that’s not an explicit requirement of the Act. AWS, like Microsoft and other enterprise cloud providers, has been investing in European versions of its cloud stacks to meet those Data Act requirements.

Tuesday’s announcement shows both that U.S. technology is still a core feature of NATO military capability and that it is central to NATO’s future plans. But it also shows that European Union regulations on data storage aren’t a challenge to the success of U.S. cloud companies across Europe, even though White House rhetoric and executive orders suggest otherwise.

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2026年4月13日，北约人员在德国卡尔卡尔参加了“锁定盾牌”演习。图片来源：Oliver Berg/picture alliance via Getty Images

该公司已成为首家获得批准，可以为所有联盟成员处理敏感数据的云服务提供商。

亚马逊网络服务已成为首个获准为所有北约成员国处理敏感信息的云服务提供商，这凸显出日益独立的欧洲仍然依赖于美国制造的能力，并表明美国公司在那里竞争并不像白宫坚持的那样困难。

该公司周二宣布，已获得联盟批准，可以处理北约限制级别的信息，该级别信息虽然不属于机密，但需要加以保护。

随着欧洲各国军队将雷达、卫星甚至声学信息融合起来，以便更容易地探测俄罗斯无人机和其他威胁，北约批准的快速数据和信息共享至关重要。

AWS 已为众多北约成员国处理敏感的军事和情报数据，此次击败了包括微软在内的其他美国云服务提供商，赢得了北约首个全面批准。AWS 全球公共部门代理副总裁 David Appel 在公司周二的声明中表示，这是“多年持续努力”的成果。AWS 与西班牙国家密码中心 (CCN) 合作，根据北约安全指令对其服务进行了测试；CCN 随后将测试结果分享给了所有成员国。

此次公告也体现了北约正在推进的广泛数字化转型战略。北约渴望将更多商业信息技术融入其协调和规划之中。AWS 仍然是欧洲最大的商业云运营商，在欧洲各地（包括英国）拥有九个数据中心集群或区域。

据亚马逊的声明援引北约通信和信息局（NCIA）总经理迪伦·布朗的话说：“加强北约安全利用商业技术的能力，是建立一个更具韧性和灵活性的联盟的关键。”

北约成员国和欧洲各地的AWS云用户将能够更轻松地共享数据，同时也能更好地掌控数据。2024年《欧盟数据法案》要求云服务提供商保护欧盟数据免受其他国家政府（包括美国）的侵害。实际上，这意味着数据必须存储在欧洲境内，不受美国法院命令的约束，尽管该法案并未明确规定这一点。与微软和其他企业云服务提供商一样，AWS一直在投资建设欧洲版本的云平台，以满足《数据法案》的要求。

周二的声明表明，美国技术仍然是北约军事能力的核心组成部分，并且对北约的未来计划至关重要。但同时也表明，尽管白宫的言论和行政命令暗示情况并非如此，但欧盟关于数据存储的法规并未对美国云公司在欧洲的成功构成挑战。

下一篇报道：空军人员会信任人工智能吗？空军的未来计划取决于此。