"Europe is tackling the cloud oligarchy. Why isn't Canada?" New op-ed by Curtis McCord and I where we build on Parting Clouds, our Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project report in the @financialpost.com financialpost.com/technology/e...

Europe is tackling the cloud oligarchy. Why isn't Canada?

In Canada and Europe, the big three hyperscalers — Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet — control more than 70% of the cloud market. Find out more

financialpost.com

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Notes from my Chatham House talk on data localization, now a post. TLDR: localization is an answer waiting for a question. Name the threat... CLOUD Act, cyber attack, fire, missiles and you quickly find no single model covers them all. Think portfolio of options, not a sovereign fortress.

Data Localization is the Answer. What Was the Question?

Last week I gave a talk at Chatham House for an event on 'Is Data Localisation the Answer to Data Sovereignty? Location, Control and the Architecture of Trust',  organised in collaboration with their Digital Ambassadors Forum. I really enjoyed the conversation and questions and had a number of people ask for slides and more details so have put together the following summary.

eaves.ca

Currently sitting in a 2 hour line just to submit a passport renewal.

sadly real history has very few Norway-Brazil clashes but kids I'm here to tell you about a little game called Civ VI

1) Open this image up 2) Find the small, blue feature in the very middle Congratulations, you've spotted the Perseverance rover on Mars, photographed from orbit! 3) Trace the rover tracks as they wend their way across the surface

🆕 Creating a Competitive Marketplace for Compute Three American firms — Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet — control 85% of Canada’s public cloud market. IIPP's Professor @eaves.ca's latest report proposes a pathway to create a more competitive marketplace for compute. 🔗 Read it here: buff.ly/4Pw8dqR

⬆️ A Bottom-Up Approach to Building a Climate Resilience Stack IIPP Professor @eaves.ca, Beatriz Vasconcellos, Richard Gevers, & Liam Orme's policy report outlines a ‘climate resilience stack’ framework to help leaders respond to climate change. 🔗 Learn more here: buff.ly/BZdpxJq

I love the onion.

The Onion@theonion.com · 2mo ago

Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

What a joy to be on stage with Emily and talking digital era state capacity.

UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose@iipp-ucl.bsky.social · 2mo ago

🤖 State Capacity in the Digital Era We kick off Day 2 of the Forum with an insightful conversation between Emily Middleton, Director General of the UK Government Digital Service (GDS), and IIPP Professor of Digital Government @eaves.ca on digital state capacity.

Good piece! I think the focus on retaining agency is spot on. I was at AWS for 5½ years & came away with strong opinions about customers retaining agency, see www.tbray.org/ongoing/When... - in the long run, teaching the customers might do as much good as trying to influence the provider landscape.

Lock-in and Multi-Cloud

tbray.org

A real privilege last week, putting an argument I've been developing to the Eurogroup, the finance ministers of the euro area — that the route to digital sovereignty isn't just about building capacity but in making cloud a utility. I wrote a blog post on what I shared.

Cloud Is a Competitiveness Question — A Note to Europe’s Finance Ministers

Kyriakos Pierrakakis opening up the session on Tech Sovereignty at the Eurogroup The Commoditized Stack Over the past year or so I've been developing an argument around confronting concentration and dependency at the cloud level of the technology stack: that at best digital sovereignty is a poor frame for this conversation, at worst it suggests pathways that are neither sustainable nor desirable.

eaves.ca

Am knee deep in grading but... in breaks I've built out a new part of eaves.ca... now library.eaves.ca which... I think looks pretty slick.

Update on current status.

David Eaves@eaves.ca · 2mo ago

Current status. Big day.

Current status. Big day.

"[AT&T access] to the iPhone reduced births by 4.5–8.0% at ages 15–19 and 3.2–6.6% at ages 20–24, with statistically significant but smaller declines among older cohorts. Placebo analyses applied to Verizon and Sprint’s pre-2011 coverage footprint are null." www.nber.org/papers/w35310

Is the iPhone Birth Control? Causal Evidence from AT&T’s 2007–2011 Carrier Monopoly

Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

nber.org

I'm excited about the piece because it takes two forces/interest that look to be in opposition: (1) EU's desire for sovereignty vs (2) US desire for force projects ...and shows that they could become forces for convergence/agreement.

David Eaves@eaves.ca · 2mo ago

Been writing a few pieces about the commoditized stack & why we should shape the cloud market to be more like a utility. This new piece in @foreignpolicy.com is why this is critical to NATO. (Paywalled) NATO’s Digital Back End Could Fall Apart Without Change foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/09/n...

Been writing a few pieces about the commoditized stack & why we should shape the cloud market to be more like a utility. This new piece in @foreignpolicy.com is why this is critical to NATO. (Paywalled) NATO’s Digital Back End Could Fall Apart Without Change foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/09/n...

NATO’s Digital Back End Could Fall Apart Without Change

Shared standards on cloud services are urgently needed.

foreignpolicy.com

🆕 Creating a Competitive Marketplace for Compute Three American firms — Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet — control 85% of Canada’s public cloud market. IIPP's Professor @eaves.ca's latest report proposes a pathway to create a more competitive marketplace for compute. 🔗 Read it here: buff.ly/4Pw8dqR

From aisle 32 seat C, a hero emerges.

Waldo Jaquith@waldo.net · 3mo ago

I’m flying home through Chicago, because it will be dinner time and I want a torta. I have a 42-minute layover. 😬 Our arrival gate is B7. Frontera is at B10. I can order via Frontera’s app when we land, and snag it as I pass by. Or so goes my theory. 🤞

New report I co-authored just dropped: three US firms control 85% of cloud computing in Canada. Your country probably faces a similar number. Sharing it widely — the problem, and the way out, matter well beyond Canada. 🧵

Unless it’s a journey! The hopeful are becoming excited. The excited are becoming anxious and the anxious are becoming angry…

Keldon Bester@keldonb.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Well at least anxiety seems to have plateaued

🎤 State Capacity in the Digital Era State capacity increasingly depends on the ability to design, finance, and govern shared digital infrastructure, but capability remains a key question. 📆 June 17 | ⏳ 10-11:30 GMT | Senate House, London ➡️ Learn more and register here: buff.ly/8cebWV7

wow, they don't make them like that anymore...

Ash Preston@theashpreston.bsky.social · 3mo ago

You know what we don't talk enough about? Queen & Annie Lennox/David Bowie rehearsing 'Under Pressure' in 1992. So much going on! Everyone's clothes, Bowie with a lit cig throughout, where Annie PROPER GOES FOR IT, George Michael singing along in the background. The amazing vocals. Yes, please!

🤖 Governments Can’t Agree on What AI Actually Is IIPP Co-Deputy Director @eaves.ca and MPA alum Sarosh Nagar's new @foreignpolicy.com article examines how different countries’ definitions of AI make it difficult to develop a shared agenda. 🔗 Read more here: buff.ly/SpV6fTC

✍️ Digital ID, payments, and data exchange should be treated as public infrastructure, not siloed IT projects. @eaves.ca, @dianecoyle1859.bsky.social, and Beatriz Vasconcellos argue governments must build shared digital foundations to avoid fragmentation. 🔗 Read their article here: buff.ly/bo9FpiL

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Maybe Peter Thiel moving to Argentina at this moment is just because he doesn’t react well to sunlight.

🤖 Governments Can’t Agree on What AI Actually Is IIPP Co-Deputy Director @eaves.ca and MPA alum Sarosh Nagar's new @foreignpolicy.com article examines how different countries’ definitions of AI make it difficult to develop a shared agenda. 🔗 Read more here: buff.ly/SpV6fTC

🎤 Sovereignty in Practice: A New Path for Europe’s Digital Success How to achieve digital sovereignty? IIPP Co-Deputy Director @eaves.ca will join a high-level roundtable convened by the @thelisboncouncil.bsky.social on May 26 2026. ➡️ Learn more and register here: buff.ly/HudeADw

Different AI worldviews are driving different AI policies and strategies. It's making international alignment harder. I'm also worried that its causing countries to build strategies on where they *hope* AI is going, not where it is.

UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose@iipp-ucl.bsky.social · 3mo ago

🤖 Governments Can’t Agree on What AI Actually Is IIPP Co-Deputy Director @eaves.ca and MPA alum Sarosh Nagar's new @foreignpolicy.com article examines how different countries’ definitions of AI make it difficult to develop a shared agenda. 🔗 Read more here: buff.ly/SpV6fTC