What to remember from the OVHCloud 2024 keynote?

« Today we begin a new chapter “. Thursday, November 28, took place the annual high mass of OVHCloud at the Maison de la Mutualité in Paris: a special event this year for the group which celebrated its 25th anniversary. “ 25 years for me is not nothing. It's half my life », joked Octave Klaba in front of an audience of developers, customers, partners and fans. The founding CEO of the group arrived on stage in his usual outfit – black t-shirt and pants – after several minutes of musical prelude – rock played by three musicians, concert hall atmosphere included. But this time, he was pushing a sort of cart – a rack on wheels – on which was written: “One Prem Cloud Platform”.

« There you have storage servers, there (…) GPUs, and there (…) the computing power », he commented, slightly out of breath, as he opened the door of this cluster. “ With that, you have all the hardware, the software, so everything to make it work” OVHCloud's cloud offerings, he enthused.

Taking office a month earlier

The “One Prem Cloud Platform” or OPCP for insiders was launched this year: with this offer, the Roubais-based company offers cloud services on on-site infrastructures. “ Many of you are looking to keep your infrastructure local. But the new thing is that many of you are also looking to benefit from the cloud service” « in offline or managed mode “, recognized Benjamin Revcolesvhi. The former senior executive of SFR and DXC Technology (IT services company) was undergoing his baptism of fire as the new general manager of OVHCloud, on the Mutualité stage.

Because if the keynote was special this year, it is above all because it featured for the first time the fifty-year-old, who took over from Michel Paulin last October, after a six-month transition. Octave Klaba also did not fail to thank his former partner – who was not on site – for his six years at the helm of the company.

The transformation of OVHCloud, “from a European to international dimension”

In a tailored shirt and suit pants, the new general director, with files in hand that he will only consult once, first returned to the OCPB. “ This disconnected infrastructure is sometimes necessary for security and compliance reasons. This also allows you to run your applications locally, after the constraints of latency and connectivity, in factories. “, he stressed. Something to be interested in health, internal security or even industry », which for example wishes to protect its data more for reasons of confidentiality and intellectual property.

The Polytechnician then returned to his first impressions as the new manager of OVHCloud, a means of taking stock of the company which, according to him, has gone “ from infrastructure to software “, of a ” European dimension to an international dimension ».

A public share buyback offer in the coming days

OVHCloud thus generated nearly a million turnover this year (fiscal year), half of which was generated internationally. The company with 3,500 employees can also boast of its 1.6 million customers and its 43 data centers, half of which are abroad. Despite these good points, OVHCloud still does not compete with American hyperscalers. AWS, Azure and Google Cloud still largely dominate the market. Its public share buyback offer, which should be launched in the coming days, and whose objective is to increase its share price, was also not mentioned. Listed on the stock exchange since 2021, the company which suffered poor results last year saw its price fall last May, before rising slightly.

That these two subjects were not discussed is not surprising: keynote requires, it was time for celebration. The company founded by Octave Klaba was not there to count the clouds that gather under the skies of Croix and Roubaix, but to highlight the rays of sunshine that illuminate Nordic society.

The eternal card of corporate sovereignty

Among them: the company's eternal map of sovereignty, illustrated by its expanding SecNumCloud offering. This cybersecurity label issued by ANSSI is now required by the government for the hosting of sensitive data (regular, health) under its Cloud at the center doctrine. And that’s a good thing, since OVHCloud’s public Cloud offering is currently undergoing SecNumCloud certification – the labeling should come in 2025.

Also read: OVH on the European Cloud: “Talking about sovereignty is not a bad word”

The subject of sovereignty was also addressed by Clara Chappaz, the Secretary of State for AI and Digital Affairs who made the trip. For the latter, OVHCloud allows the country to “ strengthen (its) strategic autonomy “. If the former boss of French Tech did not refer to the negotiations surrounding the EUCS, the European version of SecNumCloud currently being discussed in Brussels, the latter did not fail to cite the Draghi report which calls for the necessary awakening of Europe.

Within OVHCloud, are we worried about the turn of the negotiations which seem to favor an EUCS without sovereignty criteria (and without exclusion of American hyperscalers), for the hosting of the most sensitive data of Europeans?

Also read: Cloud: this French commission pleads to reinstate sovereignty criteria in the future European cybersecurity label (EUCS)

The question is brushed aside by the head of quantum and the start-up program at OVHCloud, Fanny Bouton, interviewed during a post-keynote press briefing. For the latter, customers mainly turn to OVHCloud for its prices and the quality of its service, before the sovereign nature of the clouder.

“An AI Frankenstein to take the best of open source and assemble the right models”

Other announcements more related to AI were distilled during the keynote, with a particular emphasis placed on open source AI, the group being unable to align with the billions necessary for the development of proprietary LLMs: OVHCloud notably presented Omissimo, described by Octave Klaba as “ an AI Frankenstein to take the best of open source and assemble the right models “. The request, depending on its nature, would be redirected to the most relevant open source LLM.

« For example, to translate from English to French, Llama 3.2 is ideal. For a translation into Chinese, Qwen 2.5 does better », Specifies the founder of OVHCloud. An API – AI Endpoint – also provides access to around forty LLMs – offers aimed more at developers than at end users.

The group is banking on quantum

Finally, a large part of the keynote was devoted to quantum. OVHCloud, which acquired the MosaiQ quantum computer last March, announced that it was providing a hub of eight quantum emulators. A quantum computer “connected to” the cloud will be launched next year, in partnership with the French start-up Pasqal. It will therefore soon be possible to perform calculations on this quantum computer: a first.

Also read: OVHCloud inaugurates its first quantum computer on its Croix site: what will it be used for?

Its leader, Georges-Olivier Reymond, recalled on stage that with quantum, it was not a question of “ to gain a few percent, but to go from an amount of calculation that would last billions of years to only a few days “. A technological leap that OVHCloud intends to ride… over the next twenty-five years.