About Me
Building Europe's Digital Future
I'm Antoine Tielbeke, and I believe Europe deserves digital independence. Not just as a concept, but as a practical reality that organizations can achieve today.
I've spent six years on infrastructure that people depend on without ever thinking about it. I scaled the platform behind the Dutch national COVID-19 testing programme past a million appointments a day. I built the observability platform that engineering teams at Essent use to understand their own systems. Right now, through Team Rockstars IT, I'm building an EU sovereign cloud landing zone at Enexis on OVHcloud.
That last one is the work I most wanted to be doing, because here's what keeps me up at night: 80% of Dutch infrastructure runs on American hyperscalers, subject to laws like the CLOUD Act that fundamentally conflict with European values of privacy and data sovereignty.
This isn't just about compliance checkboxes. It's about who controls our data, our innovation, and ultimately, our future. That's why I also co-lead infrastructure for Volt Europa, a pan-European political movement building infrastructure that respects European sovereignty from the ground up.
My Mission: Practical European Sovereignty
I co-authored a whitepaper analyzing the Dutch cloud infrastructure landscape and our dangerous over-reliance on American providers. But analysis without action is just academic exercise.
The Problem
European organizations unknowingly expose themselves to foreign surveillance laws, data access requests, and geopolitical leverage by routing everything through US-based hyperscalers. The CLOUD Act isn't theoretical, it's a direct threat to European data sovereignty.
The Solution
We don't need to reinvent the wheel. European alternatives like Scaleway, GAIA-X, and IPCEI-CIS exist today. With proper containerization, open-source standards, and exit strategies, organizations can reduce hyperscaler dependency without sacrificing capability.
What I'm Doing
At Enexis I'm building a sovereign landing zone on OVHcloud. At Volt Europa I consolidated five providers onto Scaleway and cut infrastructure cost by 40% doing it. European cloud sovereignty isn't a compromise, it's an upgrade, and I'd rather demonstrate that than argue it.
Advocacy & Community
Whitepaper: Cloud Soevereiniteit
Co-authored with investigative journalist Brenno de Winter and six Team Rockstars colleagues. An analysis of Dutch dependency on American hyperscalers, the risks of the CLOUD Act, and actionable strategies for European alternatives. Published in Dutch.
Read the Whitepaper (PDF, Dutch) →Volt Europa: Infrastructure Co-Lead
Co-leading infrastructure for a pan-European political movement of 38,000 members with an IT team of around 50 volunteers. Consolidated five cloud providers onto Scaleway, cutting cost by 40%, migrated roughly 35 applications onto a single Kubernetes cluster, and introduced the movement's first identity provider covering all 38,000 members.
Want to Work Together?
Whether you're interested in European cloud sovereignty, need help with AWS and Kubernetes, or want to discuss how to reduce hyperscaler dependency, let's talk.