The Federal Council has commissioned the Federal IT Steering Committee (FSUIT), in collaboration with the departments and the Federal Chancellery (FC), with the cantons and with experts from business and science, to examine whether Switzerland should strive for its own cloud and data infrastructure with a “Swiss Cloud”, analogous to European data cloud projects (Media release):
Such a “Swiss Cloud” should not necessarily have to be newly built and operated by a single Swiss cloud provider, but should be able to rely on existing decentralized infrastructures of several Swiss public cloud providers. It should also be examined to what extent a “Swiss Cloud” could contribute to the competitiveness of Switzerland as a location as well as for the development and application of technologies in the areas of artificial intelligence and secure data storage. The Federal Council will be informed periodically about the status of the current clarifications and about the results of the feasibility study at the end of June 2021.
This is against the backdrop of certain risks associated with the use of public clouds, particularly the dependence on global providers.