Shaping digital sovereignty together: BSI and Schwarz Digits enter into strategic partnership

• The BSI and Schwarz Digits are cooperating on the development of sovereign cloud solutions for public administration. 
• The partners are developing control layers and secure cloud systems, including for critical data. 
• Sovereign infrastructure ensures the ability to act against hybrid threats and prevents vendor lock-ins.

Neckarsulm/Munich, February 13, 2026 – The German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and Schwarz Digits, the IT and digital division of the Schwarz Group, agreed today on a strategic cooperation during the Munich Security Conference. The aim of the partnership is to jointly develop sovereign cloud solutions for public administration in order to strengthen Germany's technological independence. The cooperation includes an intensive exchange of expertise and the development of technical control layers.

In view of increasing hybrid threats and geopolitical tensions, digital sovereignty is becoming central to state resilience. To ensure the protection of critical infrastructures and the administrative capacity of the government, the BSI and Schwarz Digits are relying on a coordinated approach. The focus is on the exchange of information on the cybersecurity situation, the further development of existing solutions and the targeted development of sovereign cloud infrastructures: Schwarz Digits plans to implement the requirements for operating a 'confidential' public cloud in 2026 with 'STACKIT Public Cloud Restricted'. Building on this, 'STACKIT Distributed Cloud' will follow with a scalable cloud infrastructure up to the 'Secret' classification level.

BSI President Claudia Plattner: "Digitalization is becoming the linchpin of a rapidly changing world – with implications and interactions for rules of coexistence, politics, power and state interests. Germany and Europe need a strong response to this. I am therefore extremely pleased that we now have Schwarz Digits at our side as a partner with whom we can strategically advance digitization in our country while at the same time securing it: through innovative, high-performance products with state-of-the-art security and sovereignty features that benefit the state, the economy and society alike. This is a major and important step on the path to a resilient cyber nation Germany."

Dr. Karsten Wildberger, Federal Minister for Digitalisation and State Modernization: "Germany is on the move - visibly, measurably and with increasing speed. The partnership between the Federal Office for Information Security and Schwarz Digits is a strong signal of German innovative strength and European capacity to act. When government security expertise meets cutting-edge industrial know-how, sovereign cloud solutions are created that make our administration more modern, faster and more secure. This is how we strengthen our independence. Digital sovereignty is the key to future viability - and therefore to security, freedom and prosperity."

Operational cooperation and technological standards 

The cooperation provides for regular mutual visits and professional exchange formats. Thematically, the partnership covers critical areas such as monitoring, cloud forensics, and approval processes for the processing of classified information. In addition, general sovereignty criteria and interoperability standards are to be further developed in order to simplify provider changes and avoid dependencies (vendor lock-in).

Rolf Schumann, Co-CEO of Schwarz Digits, emphasizes: "True digital freedom can only be achieved through control over one's own data and systems. We see this partnership as a clear signal for a digitally sovereign Europe that resolutely defends its values in cyberspace as well."

Christian Müller, Co-CEO of Schwarz Digits, adds: "Our technological response is based on the consistent development of technical control layers and the implementation of the zero trust principle. We create interoperability through open source technologies in order to permanently rule out technical vendor lock-in for the administration."

In addition to infrastructure, the partnership also addresses strategic issues relating to the IT security of products and services. At a time when demographic change is putting pressure on public administration, technologies such as artificial intelligence are becoming a necessary driver of efficiency. The partnership ensures that such innovations can be deployed on a secure and sovereign foundation.