Digital inde­pendence: one step at a time

Helsinki chose Finnish UpCloud as the platform for its core public services system — not an American tech giant. It was not an ideological gesture, but a deliberate starting point: digital independence is built in individual procurement decisions, not in a single sweeping policy. I have written about the necessity of digital independence before . This piece looks concretely at what that means in everyday procurement decisions.

Why did Helsinki choose a Finnish cloud over an international one?

Koda is developing a critical core system for Helsinki city services. Finnish UpCloud was selected as the cloud provider — the criteria emphasised technical performance, information security, and domestic infrastructure. Data is stored primarily in Finland, with backups in Sweden. The choice was not made because international providers were not evaluated — they were evaluated and found unsuitable.

Helsinki’s Chief Digitalisation Officer Hannu Heikkinen summarised the significance of the decision: it is excellent that a critical core system for the city can be built using the modern cloud solutions of a Finnish provider, ensuring service availability under exceptional circumstances and maintaining full control over data management.

The choice was made as a deliberate response to a changed geopolitical environment. When the geopolitical landscape shifts, the public sector must be able to trust that critical systems remain under its own control. That is a requirement a European provider can meet. An American provider is inevitably tied to its country’s political situation — and as recent years have shown, that situation can change quickly.

What happens when vendor lock-in has already occurred?

Helsinki’s case is, however, two-sided. While the city is building new systems correctly, it carries a reminder of just how difficult it is to break free from existing, deeply integrated systems.

The city council acknowledged earlier this year that migrating away from Microsoft’s cloud services would be “extremely challenging” and would require significant financial investment and “considerable loss of functionality”. The dependency does not affect just one piece of software: it extends from cloud infrastructure to office applications and operating systems — an ecosystem where every part depends on the next.

This is the essence of today’s digital dependency: it was built piece by piece, without guidance, and the lock-in is now severe.

Helsinki has not stood idle: ICT procurement guidelines are being updated to favour European providers, and a European contingency plan for crisis situations has been negotiated. The right direction has been found, but the road is long. The same situation repeats itself in hundreds of municipalities across Finland.

Are European alternatives sufficient?

European alternatives are sufficient for most public sector needs — and often price-competitive as well. Critics can reasonably point out that they sometimes offer a narrower range of features than large American platforms. That is true. But the right question is: are all those features actually needed?

In my work I have built and maintained software systems built on top of large international platforms. I have repeatedly seen how the much-praised special features of large providers go unused. It is close to exceptional to find systems that could not be built with fewer features. The same logic applies to AI in public services : technical possibilities and actual needs are different things.

When a system is built from scratch, you can choose exactly what is needed — without years of accumulated legacy or vendor-imposed constraints. Migrating away from existing systems is expensive, and changes should not be made hastily. But new procurements are a different matter: they must be built correctly from the start, without repeating the same mistake.

How is digital independence built in practice?

Digital independence is built like energy security of supply: calmly and with foresight, before the situation forces the issue. It is not a matter of one big decision, but of every procurement.

UpCloud’s founder Joel Pihlajamaa put it well: choosing a European provider is not merely a technical question — it is a conscious value choice for digital sovereignty and European independence. A public organisation that makes this choice today is not just managing its own risks. It is simultaneously building a market for European alternatives and making them more likely to be chosen in future situations.

A broader vision of where things are heading is also needed. Individual procurement decisions are not enough if each organisation makes them in its own silo without a shared direction. A national goal and the guidance needed to achieve it are now required. The Digital Independence citizen initiative demands exactly this — and has already gathered thousands of signatures.

The choices made at the point of procurement are cheaper than changes forced by a crisis — both financially and strategically. From energy security of supply we learned that it pays to start preparing before you have to. Digital infrastructure is no different.

What would happen if every municipality decided that its next system project would be built primarily on a European platform?

Published in Verde 26.3.2026.