Schwarz-Gruppe, owner of the German retail chains Lidl and Kaufland, is one of the largest players in the European retail market. In 2024, the group posted revenues of 175 billion euros, placing it fourth among the world's largest retailers - behind Walmart, Amazon and Costco. Behind this, however, lies a far more ambitious project: building its own technological ecosystem intended to make Germany independent of the American cloud giants.
The key to this transformation is STACKIT - a new cloud platform that aims to become the first truly German hyperscaler (a company offering cloud services at an enormous scale - editor's note).
For several years, Schwarz-Gruppe has consistently invested in logistics (its own shipping line Tailwind Shipping Lines and rail operator Tailwind Intermodal), waste management, Prezero with revenues of 3.9 billion euros, and energy. The largest outlays, however - around 10 billion euros - have flowed in recent years into the digital sector. Within Schwarz Digits, the group's IT division employing more than 4,000 specialists, the STACKIT platform was created. Its aim is not only to handle the internal processes of Lidl and Kaufland, but also to enter the open cloud market as a European alternative to AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.
STACKIT is based on open-source OpenStack software - a technologically neutral and modifiable open-source solution. The platform offers classic cloud services such as storage, computing power, databases, analytics tools, as well as an environment for developing and testing applications. It currently operates across four German data centers, with a fifth under construction in Brandenburg. All data is processed exclusively within Germany and the European Union, which is of critical importance in the context of GDPR regulations, the CLOUD Act and concerns about dependence on American jurisdiction.
Internally, STACKIT has already proven its worth. Over the past 18 months, Lidl's online store, together with its Lidl Pay payment system, has been migrated to it entirely. Kaufland has moved its marketplace and loyalty card systems - handling hundreds of millions of transactions annually - onto the platform. Thanks to a partnership with the likewise German SAP, STACKIT offers European infrastructure for critical business processes that previously could not be run without American providers.
The Schwarz group is placing a strong bet on sovereign artificial intelligence. Within the PhariaAI Suite, it offers solutions developed in cooperation with the German startup Aleph Alpha - a European competitor to OpenAI. The platform allows companies to develop and deploy AI models without the risk of knowledge leaking to American competitors. Another flagship product is the Wire messenger, a solution with BSI certification (the Federal Office for Information Security), enabling the secure exchange of even classified information. Wire is already in use internally within the group at the management board level and is gradually being rolled out in the public sector.
Rolf Schumann, co-CEO of Schwarz Digits, puts it plainly: "We want to secure our technical sovereignty." Christian Muller, the second co-CEO and CIO of the group, adds: "All the services we develop, we use ourselves as a large enterprise." The strategy is clear - STACKIT does not intend to directly compete with the American hyperscalers on scale, but rather to be a complement and a secure alternative for German business and the public sector, which fear losing control over data and know-how when using American offerings. Market experts see enormous potential in this. Analysts point out that the European cloud market is large enough that even a "smaller" player can grow quickly by offering local infrastructure and compliance with EU regulations. STACKIT responds to the growing demand for "IT aus Europa" - an initiative promoted by politicians and businesses alike. Geopolitical tensions, the war in Ukraine, and increasingly frequent data incidents are only accelerating this trend.
Schwarz-Gruppe is not sparing resources on promotion. In 2022, a Germany-wide marketing campaign worth several million euros was announced. Today STACKIT is already fully available to external customers and is being consistently expanded. Partnerships with SAP and Aleph Alpha show that the group is not operating in isolation, but building an ecosystem.
For many observers, STACKIT is a symbol of a broader transformation of Germany. Dieter Schwarz, known as the "silent giant," is not merely modernizing his own conglomerate - he is building a new economic architecture for the country. From retail through logistics, recycling, and energy to data and artificial intelligence, Schwarz-Gruppe is creating a closed, self-sufficient value chain. In Heilbronn, a veritable model city of the future is taking shape, centered around commerce, technology and education.
Will STACKIT really become the first German hyperscaler? For now it still lags far behind Amazon or Microsoft in terms of scale. Yet in the segment of a sovereign, European cloud it has a realistic chance to take the leading position. For German business, public administration and companies that care about data protection, the Schwarz Digits offering could prove to be a breakthrough.
Dieter Schwarz, the 86-year-old founder of the empire, remains one of the most enigmatic figures in German business. The richest German, whose fortune is estimated at 46.5 billion euros, avoids the media, gives no interviews and does not allow his photographs to be published. Despite his advanced age, he still actively shapes the group's strategy from its headquarters in Heilbronn. It was he who in 2018 approved the STACKIT project, seeing in the cloud not only a tool for the digitalization of retail, but above all a guarantor of Germany's technological power.
[Author, Aleksandra Fedorska is a journalist for Tysol.pl and numerous Polish and German media]
[Title, "What you need to know" section, "Is STACKIT a viable technological alternative?", as well as subheadings and lead by the Editorial team]
