Cloudflare penned a partnership with Deutsche Telekom (DT) aimed at strengthening security for European digital infrastructure.

The team-up provides Cloudflare with further reach into the European market, while DT's T-Systems enterprise arm will tap the content delivery network (CDN) giant’s connectivity solutions. The pair billed the deal as “bringing together complementary strengths” to address growing pressures on IT teams.

“By combining Cloudflare’s global connectivity and security platform with Deutsche Telekom’s infrastructure expertise and customer reach, we are helping organizations secure their networks, strengthen their resilience, and accelerate transformations at a global scale,” Cloudflare Chief Strategy Officer Stephanie Cohen explained.

Direct interconnections aside, it marks Cloudflare’s latest push into Europe. The firm first opened doors on an inaugural continental office in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2019, and has since grown its network to cover some of Europe’s major cities – despite facing consternation in Spain.

For DT, it’s a partnership with yet another American brand as it vies to be the safe go-between for big-name cloud players and the continent’s growing obsession with the concept of “sovereignty.” The telecom firm has already shacked up with the likes of Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft, and Google Cloud, acting as a trusted bridge between hyperscalers and European customers.

“With Cloudflare, we are engaging into a strategic partnership that lays the foundation for reliable and high-performance networks across Europe. What unites us is a clear ambition: to help our customers across Europe advance their digital infrastructure and manage their services with a very high degree of security and resilience," Kerstin Baumgart, wholesale director and member of the board of management at DT, added. “By connecting Cloudflare's platform directly with our networks and combining our respective technological capabilities, our customers will benefit from the synergies of two highly complementary infrastructures.”