Klaus Koefoed spent more than 25 years in IT services and consultancy, at Capgemini, Deloitte, and Accenture, before taking over as CEO of T-Systems in Northern Europe. In this episode of the Smooth Scaling Podcast, Klaus walks host Jose Quaresma through the rise of sovereign cloud: why a theme almost nobody raised two years ago turned urgent in early 2025, and what actually changed. They get into Europe's real position against the American hyperscalers, why the answer is rarely either/or, and how leaders should weigh the data, operational, technology, and legal layers of sovereignty. Klaus is candid that none of this comes for free. Multi-cloud adds complexity, and the right answer depends entirely on who you are. The back half turns to sovereign AI, where T-Systems and NVIDIA have stood up a billion-euro Industrial AI Cloud, and where Europe's gigafactory ambitions, real use cases like simulated wind tunnels, and AI Scrum Teams come in. A grounded, practical look at building and running infrastructure when geopolitics is suddenly part of the architecture.
Episode page
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- (00:00) - Intro
- (00:46) - From consulting to running T-Systems
- (01:45) - When sovereignty went from niche to urgent
- (03:54) - Where Europe stands: strengths and gaps
- (06:50) - "Let's not be lemmings": a balanced approach
- (08:32) - SaaS, optionality, and freedom of movement
- (12:06) - The what-if scenarios CIOs miss
- (14:00) - The levels of sovereignty: data, ops, tech, legal
- (16:21) - How to actually evaluate European options
- (20:38) - Treat your cloud like an insurance review
- (23:08) - Hybrid, multi-cloud, and the move back to private
- (27:50) - Sovereign AI and Europe's alternatives
- (30:09) - Real use cases: digital twins and wind tunnels
- (38:07) - Gigafactories and AI Scrum Teams
- (40:21) - Rapid fire: resources and "scalability is..."
Klaus Koefoed is CEO of T-Systems Northern Europe, leading Deutsche Telekom's B2B IT-service business across the Nordics, UK and Ireland. He joined T-Systems in June 2023 from Capgemini, where he was VP and Nordic Head of Cloud Strategy & Transformation Advisory. Before that, he was a Partner at Deloitte Consulting, with earlier years at Accenture. Copenhagen-based, with 25+ years in IT services and consultancy. His move from advising to operating arrived just as digital sovereignty stopped being a compliance footnote and became a board-level resilience question. Under Klaus, T-Systems Northern Europe has pushed hard on Sovereign Solutions for Europe and especially T Cloud Public (formerly known as Open Telekom Cloud) — now ten years old enterprise grade European Public Cloud — and recently opened the Industrial AI Cloud, Europe's largest sovereign AI-infrastructure, with 10,000 GPUs connected to the existing portfolio. That makes him one of very few executives in the region who can credibly talk about running sovereign cloud and sovereign AI at scale in Europe.
🔗 Connect
Klaus Koefoed: https://www.linkedin.com/in/klauskoefoed/
Host José Quaresma: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jose-quaresma/
This podcast is researched by Joseph Thwaites, produced by Perseu Mandillo, and brought to you by Queue-it, your virtual waiting room partner.
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