Powering Europe’s future: a CoreWeave perspective on Cloud Week (Guest blog from Coreweave)

This blog was written by George Illingworth, Director of Market Expansion, CoreWeave

Cloud Week is a moment to take stock of where the cloud industry stands in the UK. It is also a reminder of the responsibility that providers have in shaping the conditions for innovation, sustainability and trust.

At CoreWeave, our mission is clear: to power the growth of AI innovation across the region by offering a purpose-built cloud, powered by the latest AI infrastructure, and designed for the most demanding AI workloads across enterprises, startups and research organisations.

The shift from on-prem to cloud

Across the region, organisations are accelerating their migration away from on-premise deployments. The drivers are clear: successive generations of compute require vast capital expenditure, new hardware must be brought online at unprecedented speed to capitalise on the latest technical advances, and the complexities of GPUs and their deployments are intensifying. At the same time, security and encryption technologies are maturing to provide enterprises with the necessary confidence to move their data to the cloud. As a result, companies are increasingly turning to hybrid and multi-cloud strategies that offer flexibility and avoid technological lock-in. The question is no longer whether cloud is the future, but what kind of cloud will meet the needs of the UK and Europe’s most ambitious innovators.

The rise of Specialised Cloud

For years, hyperscalers have formed the backbone of the cloud market. Their scale is undeniable, but generalist platforms are not always suited to the most performance-intensive workloads. In AI especially, organisations are seeking specialist providers who can deliver not only powerful compute, but also the orchestration, observability and services that make those resources practical and performant.

Headlines these days frequently highlight vast investments in new compute deployments. This rising demand for specialised cloud has attracted a number of new market entrants, with varying levels of experience in deploying and operating this advanced infrastructure. At CoreWeave, we currently operate 470 MW of active capacity across 33 global locations, with 900 MW expected by year-end and 2.2 GW under contract. We were first to market with NVIDIA H100, H200, GB200 and RTX 6000 GPUs, as well as the latest Blackwell Ultra platform. We are trusted by AI leaders including Mistral, OpenAI, IBM and Jane Street.

The notion that compute has become commoditised does not hold true in practice, as highlighted by the breadth of ratings in SemiAnalysis’s inaugural ClusterMAX™ analysis, which identified CoreWeave as the #1 cloud for AI. The difference lies in the sophistication of how cloud resources are delivered, monitored and scaled. Earlier this year, we were excited to welcome Weights and Biases to CoreWeave, to continue building our end-to-end AI solution for our customers. On CoreWeave’s cloud, clients gain not only raw power, but a set of services that accelerate innovation, simplify deployment and reduce operational burden.

Relative to industry benchmarks, CoreWeave’s platform enables organisations to extract 20% more work from the same compute (MFU), and complete jobs in 7.8% less time (Goodput). These factors combine to drive a higher efficiency and lower total cost of ownership for leading AI companies.

Sovereignty, in context

Across Europe, few words are heard more often than “sovereignty.” Everyone agrees on its importance, but interpretations vary. For some, it means keeping data within borders; for others, it means independence from international providers. The reality is that Europe’s competitiveness in AI depends on striking a balance between building sovereign capacity where it is most critical while also welcoming international investment and collaboration.

CoreWeave is deeply committed to this balance. We provide localised infrastructure in the UK, EU and EEA, with the security, encryption and compliance standards needed across regulatory jurisdictions and industries. Our European headquarters in London reflect our long-term commitment to the region, and our model is designed to integrate seamlessly into hybrid and multi-cloud environments. With zero ingress and egress fees, our approach ensures sovereignty does not come at the expense of flexibility.

Regulatory rubber hits the road

As successive phases of the EU AI Act take effect, opinion remains divided on the optimal regulatory approach: protecting fundamental rights while enabling growth. Fewer constraints may spur innovation in Europe’s startups, but established enterprises benefit from the certainty of a defined regulatory framework. Sandbox environments, such as the FCA’s AI sandbox, help bridge this divide.

The UK has adopted a more pragmatic stance, recognising the risks of applying static constraints to a rapidly evolving field. Meanwhile, the EU Data Act will give businesses greater flexibility to migrate between cloud providers - echoing CoreWeave’s long-held stance on zero ingress and egress fees.

Sustainability as standard

Sustainability remains central to public debate in both the UK and EU, as Member States implement the Energy Efficiency Directive. Cloud providers must show that growth aligns with environmental responsibility, and at CoreWeave, we take this seriously.

All European operations run on 100% renewable energy. In Sweden, we partner with EcoDataCenter to channel excess heat to local industry. In Barcelona, our partnership with Merlin Edged enables a water-free, closed-loop cooling system. These measures reflect our belief that innovation should never come at the planet’s expense.

Looking ahead

The next phase of Europe’s AI cloud market will likely bring consolidation, driven by the sector’s capital intensity. Policymakers are also setting ambitious targets to expand domestic capacity through reforms on planning, permitting and energy access.

This creates conditions for companies like CoreWeave to invest directly to meet surging demand. Yet challenges remain: reliable, affordable, sustainable power is still the main constraint on scaling compute. Governments must accelerate infrastructure development, while we focus on delivering purpose-built cloud services that innovators can trust.

Conclusion

CoreWeave’s mission is clear: deliver a purpose-built AI cloud that is secure, sustainable and optimised for best-in-class performance. In Europe, our deployments are active across the UK, Norway, Sweden and Spain. We’re not just talking about compute—we’re building a cloud designed for it.