German intelligence agencies reportedly plan a classified-data cloud built on Google

Germany’s three federal intelligence services plan to exchange classified information through a shared cloud built on Google technology. The public broadcasters NDR and WDR reported the plan, and Tagesschau published it on 23 October 2026. The system is called the “ND-Cloud”. It would serve the domestic service BfV, the foreign service BND and the military counter-intelligence service MAD, and carry documents up to the classification “Geheim” (Secret). The state-level domestic intelligence offices are to join later.

According to the report, the cloud would run on the air-gapped version of Google Distributed Cloud. That version operates with no connection to the internet or to Google, and the data would stay in Germany. Several components are still under review at the BSI, the federal cyber-security office, and the budget is to be released only after approval. Insiders put the cost at EUR 500 million or more. A start planned for the first quarter of 2027 is slipping. The BND, the BfV and the MAD did not answer questions about the cloud; the BfV said only that European solutions were “of particular interest” for its technical resilience.

The Bundeswehr made a similar choice first. In June 2025 its IT provider BWI announced two Google Cloud Air-Gapped instances in its own data centres, one for open data and one for data up to “VS-NfD”, the lowest classification level. Google Cloud Public Sector Deutschland GmbH supplies the software and its maintenance, and updates arrive on physical media rather than over a network. Tagesschau reports that the intelligence services also want BWI to help run the ND-Cloud, which would take the same product two classification levels higher.

The open question is updates. Sven Herpig of the think tank Interface told NDR and WDR that updates would still come from Google, and asked whether the German operator could judge what an update changes. heise points out that S3NS, the French offering that Thales operates on Google technology, depends on Google for software in the same way. Konstantin von Notz, the Green deputy chair of the Bundestag’s intelligence oversight committee, said the government would have to explain why a European solution was not possible.

This site lists Google Compute Engine as an incumbent, with STACKIT Compute Engine, OVHcloud Public Cloud Instances, Scaleway Compute Instances and Hetzner Cloud against it. Those are public clouds for ordinary workloads, and this site does not rate any of them for classified data. The BSI proposed criteria for grading how far a cloud depends on its supplier only this spring.