Cubbit: a sovereign, geo-distributed cloud for European research and education
Research data is doubling, regulation is tightening, and dependence on non-European hyperscalers carries growing strategic risk. Universities, NRENs and research institutions need infrastructure that keeps scientific data sovereign, resilient and within reach — without rewriting the workflows that already work.
Cubbit is the first geo-distributed cloud storage enabler. Its software-defined object storage lets service providers, enterprises and public institutions spin up their own S3-compatible cloud storage in minutes, fully adaptable to each organisation’s infrastructure strategy. Data is encrypted, fragmented and distributed across multiple sites — never exposed in full, always available even if a site fails — with zero-knowledge encryption and up to 80% savings versus hyperscalers.
For the R&E community, this means a single sovereign storage layer certified by central IT, with granular spaces delegated to departments and researchers — compliant with GDPR, NIS2, ISO 27001 and national frameworks by default.
A live example: in April 2026, GARR and Cubbit launched the first geo-distributed federated storage network for Italian universities and research institutions — and the first fully operational system of its kind in Europe. Built on Cubbit’s DS3 Composer and operated by GARR on on-premises infrastructure, the network starts with 1 petabyte across Bologna, Rome and Bari and will extend to all eight GARR sites. Members contribute their own hardware and retain granular, autonomous control over accesses, configurations and data — segregated, yet selectively shareable for scientific collaboration. The platform is 100% S3-compatible (15-minute setup), scales to petabytes on GARR’s high-speed network, keeps data within the Italian perimeter compliant with GDPR and ACN, and protects against ransomware and outages via immutability, versioning, IAM and geo-distribution.
Today Cubbit’s hyper-resilient, cybersecure technology is trusted by 400+ organisations, including Leonardo and Rai Way.
Discover how Cubbit can help your organization at TNC26.
You can listen in to our first “Get Ready for TNC26” podcast with Cubbit here.
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