Alibaba Cloud launched its first data centers in France this week， its third European hub after Germany and the UK. Agentic AI services are planned for the region in the second half of the year. The timing is pointed. The European Commission published its Cloud and AI Development Act on June 3rd， explicitly flagging "limited data center capacity" as a threat to European digital independence. The EU wants to be a global AI leader. It needs infrastructure to do it. Europe's data sovereignty push is largely about reducing dependence on US hyperscalers - AWS， Azure， Google Cloud. Whether European businesses and regulators will draw that distinction sharply remains to be seen .So far， Alibaba Cloud's European expansion has proceeded without significant political friction - Germany and the UK came first， France now.