ESA picks OVHcloud and CGI to build Digital EO data platform

OVHcloud and CGI have secured a 30-month contract from the European Space Agency (ESA) to build computing infrastructure for storing and processing data from Europe's Earth observation satellites, the companies said on Monday.

The system, named Digital EO, will bring together storage, computing capacity and artificial intelligence tools for researchers, public bodies and companies, and will link up with existing national and European facilities. OVHcloud, described as Europe's largest cloud provider, will supply computing, storage and network capacity, while IT consulting and systems integration firm CGI will serve as architect and integrator.

The award aligns with the European Commission's efforts to direct strategic workloads to European providers. It follows a €180 million cloud tender in April that was handed exclusively to four European firms.

According to the companies, ESA expects to hold more than 500 petabytes of Earth observation data by 2035. The contract value was described by OVHcloud and CGI as "multi-million" euros, while ESA did not disclose a figure.

"Europe absolutely must have control over the infrastructure that runs its most strategic programmes," OVHcloud CEO Octave Klaba said in a statement.

The deployment will take place in Italy, France and Germany, with support operations run from Poland. The system is designed to feed programmes including Copernicus, the European Union's Earth observation programme, and DestinE, the EU's digital twin of Earth.

ESA has been moving to upgrade how Europe handles satellite imagery. Earlier in September, it awarded parallel study contracts to teams led by Finland's ICEYE and Italy's Leonardo to design a separate, security-focused Earth observation architecture for EU governments.