💡 Is Europe entering a new wave of AI investment?
At Nexus Luxembourg 2026, Octave Klaba, Founder of OVHcloud, joined journalist Olivia Kinghorst for a fireside chat on technological sovereignty and Europe’s opportunity in the global AI race.
Klaba explains why the barriers to building AI are falling dramatically — from infrastructure costs and access to models to advances in data and algorithms — creating new opportunities for European players.
The conversation explores sovereign AI, cloud infrastructure, Europe’s tech talent, the importance of data quality, and the investment needed to bu...
What Octave Klaba said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Octave Klaba, founder and CEO of OVHcloud, defined sovereign AI as the ability to innovate, deploy, and scale AI while controlling data infrastructure and strategic choices. He recounted founding OVH 27 years ago out of curiosity, growing it to €1.2 billion revenue, 3,500 employees, and 250 MW of data center energy. Klaba argued that the cost of AI infrastructure has fallen dramatically: an investment of €1 billion four years ago is now equivalent to €100-200 million for the same output. He highlighted a partnership with DPE (La Poste) in Luxembourg, which led to the European Commission selecting OVHcloud and Clever Cloud to provide sovereign cloud services. Returning as CEO, he explained that aligning capital, board, and execution under one head enables faster decisions, and he emphasized the need for billions in AI investment to remain competitive.
Key takeaways
Cost of AI infrastructure has dropped: €1 billion four years ago is now €100-200 million for equivalent output.
European Commission selected OVHcloud with Clever Cloud to provide sovereign cloud services as a first step.
OVHcloud has €1.2 billion revenue, 3,500 employees, and 250 MW of data center energy.
Klaba returned as CEO to align capital, board, and execution for the AI opportunity.
Europe is entering a second AI investment wave, making it easier to bring models to market.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage in conversation with the fantastic Olivia Kinghurst. Please welcome to the stage founder and chairman of OVH Cloud, Octave Klaba.
Well, first of all, wonderful to see all of you joining us nice and early here at Nexus Luxembourg. Our audience here is going to hear a lot about the words sovereign AI over the next two days. So, can you give us in a nutshell in your view what is sovereign AI and why should Europe be making it a priority?
So, what is sovereign? It's really the ability to innovate, to deploy, and to scale AI while still keeping control of data infrastructure and all your strategic choices.
Now we heard just earlier we need to start building, not being passengers. You of course are doing a lot of building. Take us back to the beginning. It's 1999. You're a student studying engineering and you decide I'm not busy enough and so you launch OVH Cloud. Talk to us about that moment.
So I founded OVH Cloud 27 years ago based on curiosity. This curiosity took us from hosting to cloud, from cloud to data, from data to AI, and in the future probably from AI to quantum. Today OVH is 1.2 billion revenue. We are 3,500 people. We have data centers around the globe. We have 250 megawatts of energy in our data centers. We develop our own technology and we have the people that support and work with the customers in 16 different countries. And we are still animated with this curiosity about what is the future, what is the next technology, how to bring all this value for our customers.
Let me throw out a few numbers out there. You have about 1.6 million customers from over 140 countries. You have 46 data centers. Why were you able to so successfully grow and scale across Europe, but also around the world?
Yeah, it's really this availability to work with the customers, to understand the customers' needs, to go with the right products, and to make this bridge between the technology innovation, the things that are technological things, and then the customer needs, the market, what customers are ready to pay. And all this bridge is really complex in the technology because you have to bring on the table the things that solve the issues of our customers, not technology. Our customers don't really care about the technology, of course they want the technologies because they solve the issues, and this is what a cloud provider has to bring on the table.
8 more exchanges in this transcript
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Klaba, O. (2026, September 15). Octave Klaba, Founder of OVHcloud | Europe’s Second AI Investment Wave [Interview transcript]. Nexus Luxembourg. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1351786/
MLA
Octave Klaba. "Octave Klaba, Founder of OVHcloud | Europe’s Second AI Investment Wave." Nexus Luxembourg, 15 Sep. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1351786/.
BibTeX
@misc{klaba2026_1351786,
author = {Octave Klaba},
title = {Octave Klaba, Founder of OVHcloud | Europe’s Second AI Investment Wave},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Nexus Luxembourg. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {sep},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1351786/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
