Nuclear power: EDF entrusts part of its cloud to AWS

On February 13, 2024, Le Canard enchaîné (French satirical weekly) revealed that EDF had entrusted Amazon Web Services (AWS) with managing part of its cloud services in the nuclear sector. The contract involves the modernization of IT systems that run French nuclear power plants. The choice of a US player, subject to extraterritoriality, particularly in regard to the Cloud Act, can be a source of concern for an operator of essential services (OES) like the power supplier.

EDF acknowledged the contract, explaining it involved “several IT partners, including AWS, […] selected to complement internal data storage solutions and skills.” The energy provider added that, while it cannot provide further details on the AWS partnership, it “complies with European regulation.”

According to Le Figaro (French daily newspaper), EDF hired the US tech giant to manage a catalog of spare parts for its plants. According to French sovereign cloud doctrine, resorting to a SecNumCloud-certified service provider is only mandatory for public bodies. As far as OES are concerned, the military planning bill only requires choosing a sovereign operator for “essential” computer systems. It would seem that EDF is thus compliant with French and European law, as a spare parts catalog is not considered “essential”.

However, the media frenzy around the issue has forced Bruno Le Maire, French Minister of the Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, to respond. He thus recalled the government’s willingness to “foster the growth” of French cloud operators “capable of competing with large US companies.”