Striving for sovereignty across the cloud finance stack: A relational comparison of the United States, the European Union, and China

Abstract Platform finance implies financial institutions’ growing dependence on the infrastructure and technologies of large tech firms. This reliance manifests itself most clearly in cloud services provision where American technological hegemony has triggered concerns about technological sovereignty in the European Union. In China, American Big Techs have not gained much of a foothold given the role of domestic Techfins in a wider attempt to install algorithmic governance. The observed interdependencies and segmentations of global digital technology networks warrant a further analysis of how cloud finance becomes enmeshed in wider geopolitical power struggles. Based on official document analysis, this article studies the geopolitical dimensions of cloud finance regulation in the EU, the US, and China. Given the fragmented nature of cloud regulation, it compiles insights from data protection, market competition, financial sector regulation, and cybersecurity to understand how cloud finance is governed in each macro-block. Our analysis shows how regulation in the three blocs supports US financial cloud hegemony, whilst producing financial cloud subordination of its geopolitical ally the EU and drawing China into financial cloud insulation.