Google Cloud
Google's cloud platform with 43 regions, AI/data expertise (Gemini, BigQuery, GKE), 13 European regions, and HDS and C5 certifications.
About
Google Cloud is the world's third-largest cloud platform (approximately 11% market share), renowned for its expertise in artificial intelligence (Gemini), data analytics (BigQuery), and Kubernetes (GKE — the service that popularised container orchestration). Google Cloud operates 43 regions and 130 zones worldwide, including 13 regions in Europe spanning 11 countries.
European regions
| Region | Location | Low CO₂ |
|---|---|---|
europe-north1 | Hamina, Finland | ✅ |
europe-north2 | Stockholm, Sweden | ✅ |
europe-west1 | St. Ghislain, Belgium | ✅ |
europe-west2 | London, United Kingdom | ✅ |
europe-west3 | Frankfurt, Germany | — |
europe-west4 | Eemshaven, Netherlands | ✅ |
europe-west6 | Zurich, Switzerland | ✅ |
europe-west8 | Milan, Italy | — |
europe-west9 | Paris, France | ✅ |
europe-west10 | Berlin, Germany | — |
europe-west12 | Turin, Italy | — |
europe-central2 | Warsaw, Poland | — |
europe-southwest1 | Madrid, Spain | ✅ |
Services
| Category | Key services |
|---|---|
| Compute | Compute Engine, Spot VMs, Bare Metal Solution, Cloud GPUs/TPUs, Batch |
| Kubernetes | Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Cloud Run, Knative |
| Object storage | Cloud Storage (GCS), Persistent Disk, Filestore, Glacier |
| Databases | Cloud SQL, AlloyDB, Cloud Spanner, Firestore, Bigtable, Memorystore |
| Analytics / Data | BigQuery, Dataflow, Pub/Sub, Managed Kafka, Looker, Lakehouse |
| AI / ML | Vertex AI, Gemini Enterprise, Model Garden (200+ models), Mandiant |
| Networking | VPC, Cloud Interconnect, Load Balancing, Cloud Armor (DDoS/WAF), Cloud CDN |
| IAM & Security | Cloud IAM, Cloud KMS, Secret Manager, Security Command Center, Assured Workloads |
| API | Apigee API Management, API Gateway, Cloud Endpoints |
| Hybrid | Google Distributed Cloud (connected + air-gapped), GKE Multicloud |
European certifications
| Certification | Status |
|---|---|
| HDS (France) | ✅ Certified |
| C5 (German BSI) | ✅ Certified |
| ENS (Spain) | ✅ Certified |
| ISO 27001 / 27017 / 27018 / 27701 | ✅ Certified |
| SOC 1, 2, 3 | ✅ Attestations |
| PCI-DSS | ✅ Compliant |
| SecNumCloud (ANSSI) | ❌ Not certified |
| EUCS | ⏳ Under development (ENISA) |
Digital sovereignty
Google Cloud offers Sovereign Controls by Partners: a programme where qualified European partners (T-Systems, Thales/S3NS, Capgemini) operate layered sovereignty controls — encryption key management outside Google's infrastructure, data residency, and access supervision. Google Distributed Cloud (air-gapped version) enables fully disconnected on-premises deployment.
⚠️ Google Cloud is a US entity subject to the CLOUD Act. SecNumCloud qualification is not held and is structurally incompatible with the current offering. Sovereign partnerships delegate controls to European third parties, but the underlying infrastructure is still operated by Google.
Services Offered
Services are mapped to unified taxonomy categories for easy comparison across providers.
- Compute
- Kubernetes
- Object Storage
- Database
- Paas
- Caas
- Iam
- Api Gateway
Certifications & Compliance
Verified certifications and compliance attestations.
Geographic Coverage
Datacenter locations for data residency and latency considerations.
- Paris
- Brussels
- Amsterdam
- Eemshaven
- London
- Frankfurt
- Berlin
- Zurich
- Stockholm
- Hamina
- Milan
- Turin
- Warsaw
- Madrid
- Iowa
- Oregon
- Virginia
- South Carolina
- Singapore
- Tokyo
- Sydney