The IT Nerd

Leaseweb, a leading cloud services and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider, has announced the acquisition of the Broadcom VMware white label VCSP customer base of ITQ, a leading European Broadcom IT Services company. The move follows the recently announced strategic partnership between the two companies, under which ITQ selected Leaseweb as its infrastructure partner for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) services for its VCSP partners, in a significant expansion of Leaseweb’s VCF platform across Europe.

As part of the acquisition, 51 VCSP customers will transition to Leaseweb’s VCF platform, collectively accounting for approximately 35,000 cores. This brings Leaseweb’s core count to 65,000, positioning it as the largest VMware Pinnacle Partner in the Netherlands and reinforcing its position within the Broadcom partner ecosystem.

The acquired white label VCSP partners, previously operating under the Broadcom VMware Advantage Partner program, will be able to continue to market their proposition under Leaseweb’s Broadcom VMware VCSP Pinnacle Partner status. As an Authorized Pinnacle VCSP, Leaseweb transacts directly with Broadcom, providing these partners with a fully authorized and long-term platform for their VMware businesses. Partners will also continue to have access to ITQ’s VMware expertise as part of the ongoing partnership between the two organizations.

In addition to the acquired customer base, Leaseweb and ITQ are actively engaging with global non-renewing Broadcom VMware VCSP partners, offering a supported path forward for their VMware businesses under Leaseweb’s Pinnacle Partner infrastructure. Under the partnership, Leaseweb will act as provider for VMware VCF 9.x infrastructure, with ITQ serving as knowledge partner, bringing industry-leading VMware advisory and implementation expertise to support customers through migration and deployment

For more information, please visit: www.leaseweb.com

Leaseweb today announced the company is now a VMware Cloud Service Provider (VCSP) Pinnacle tier partner in the Broadcom Advantage Partner Program in the United States, European Economic Area, and Singapore. Leaseweb will help mutual enterprise customers to innovate by adopting VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) as their private cloud infrastructure. Leaseweb will offer VMware Cloud Foundation as new managed private or sovereign cloud services, supporting data residency and other jurisdictional controls. 

VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) is the platform for the modern private cloud, supporting both virtual machine (VM) and container-based applications on a single unified infrastructure with consistent operations, governance, and controls. With VCF, customers are empowered with a consistent cloud operating model spanning data centers, edge, and managed cloud infrastructure from VCSP partners. VCF combines the agility and scalability of public cloud with the security, performance, architectural control, and total cost of ownership (TCO) benefits of an on-premises environment.

Pinnacle is the highest program level in the Broadcom Advantage Partner program. Pinnacle partners are Broadcom’s most invested and strategic partners, boasting extensive certifications, a track record of significant sales and service achievements, and broad international coverage. Holding Pinnacle status signifies a partner’s deep technological know-how and proficiency in addressing the most intricate customer issues.

Leaseweb, a leading sovereign hybrid cloud services and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider, today announced the appointment of Jeroen Verkroost as its new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). With more than 20 years of experience leading digital growth, product innovation, and transformation across technology, media, and telecoms businesses, he will lead Leaseweb’s global marketing organization and play a central role in the next phase of the company’s growth.

In his new role, Verkroost will focus on strengthening Leaseweb’s global brand and market positioning. He will work closely with teams across the business to better understand customer needs and ensure marketing remains a key driver of growth as organizations embrace the opportunities presented by AI, digital infrastructure, and the sovereign hybrid cloud.

Verkroost joins Leaseweb from Holland Casino, where, as Director of Digital Transformation, he held executive board responsibility for the company’s digital growth strategy, technology, and online casino business. In this role, he led a €100M+ online business, delivering 16% revenue growth within 18 months while introducing AI-driven innovation across the organization. Prior to that, he held senior digital leadership roles at Microsoft, DPG Media, and Omnicom over a 20-year period.

Leaseweb has announced that it will showcase its full roster of global cloud and infrastructure solutions at the upcoming SaaStock USA show taking place April 15-16 at the Palmer Events Center in Austin, TX. Attendees – AI & B2B SaaS founders, operators, and investors – visiting Leaseweb Booth B13 will see first-hand how to leverage Leaseweb solutions to achieve the performance, scalability, and reliability needed to build, launch, and scale applications to ensure differentiation and strategic advantage in today’s competitive market. 

Leaseweb will feature the following solutions during SaaStock USA: 

• GPU Servers: Unleash the power of AI with our high-performance GPU servers
• Dedicated Servers: Experience unparalleled performance and reliability.
• Multi-CDN: Ensure fast, reliable content delivery across the globe.
• Public/Private Cloud: Flexible cloud solutions tailored to your needs.
• Hybrid Cloud: Combine the best of both worlds with our hybrid cloud solutions.
• Colocation: Secure and scalable colocation services.
• Object Storage: Efficient and scalable storage solutions.
• File and Block Storage: Flexible storage solutions for every need.
• Managed Kubernetes: Simplify container orchestration with our managed Kubernetes services.

Qualified SaaStock USA attendees that schedule and attend a meeting with Leaseweb in Booth B13 will be entered to win a pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses. To learn more and schedule your meeting please visit: https://www.leaseweb.com/en/about-us/events/saastock-usa-2026.

Leaseweb today announced the appointment of Jan Willem des Tombe as its new Global Strategic Relations Director, reinforcing its strategic ambition to accelerate growth and strengthen its position in the hybrid cloud and sovereign infrastructure landscape. Des Tombe will focus on developing and strengthening Leaseweb’s global market narrative, increasing industry visibility and recognition, and supporting strategic growth initiatives across marketing, communications, sales, partnerships, and M&A.

With over two decades of experience in the TMT, SaaS, IT Managed Services, Cloud, Workspace, and E-commerce sectors, des Tombe brings extensive leadership expertise in scaling businesses, developing commercial strategy, and guiding organizations through transformation. He has previously worked with organizations including Reckitt Benckiser, Tripolis Solutions (now Spotler), and KPN Interned Services, and founded and chaired public-private industry platforms DHPA (now Dutch Cloud Community) and DINL.

I have three 2026 Predictions from Richard Copeland who is the CEO of Leaseweb USA. They are as follows:

Prediction 1: Trusted Execution Environment Technology Will Reshape Distributed Compute and Multi-Cloud Architecture

“In 2026, Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) technologies will finally move from ‘interesting concept’ to real-world game changer. We’re going to see organizations secure memory and hardware in a way that simply wasn’t practical before, which opens the door for decentralized compute in a very big way. Companies will be able to safely split compute across multiple clouds, regional providers, and even on-prem environments, instead of keeping all their workloads under one hyperscaler’s roof. This will bring a level of flexibility and resilience that hasn’t been possible until now.

What is interesting to note here is that the shift isn’t driven by budgets or hype, but by behavior. When you can secure workloads at the hardware level, you’re suddenly free to architect systems around business needs instead of who owns the data center. It unlocks more creative architectures for blockchain, AI, and high-performance computing, and gives organizations confidence that they can spread their risk without compromising security.”

Prediction 2: AI Becomes Truly Agentic – Replacing Tasks, Not People – and Drives a New Phase of Cloud Repatriation

“AI is no longer just a tool for optimization. In 2026, agentic AI starts replacing full workflows, and that shift will separate companies that understand how to use AI from those that fight it. The real impact isn’t that AI replaces jobs, but that it replaces the tasks people shouldn’t be doing in the first place – the repetitive, time-sucking operations that drain teams. Organizations that lean into agentic AI will run faster, make decisions earlier, and redirect people into work that actually moves the business. 

As AI becomes more embedded in day-to-day operations, more companies will realize that complexity and cost are pushing them away from the hyperscalers. They’re seeing outages, noisy-neighbor issues, unpredictable billing, and environments so complex that one failure cascades through the whole stack. AI workloads, especially GPU-heavy ones, run better, and more cost-effectively, when the infrastructure is simpler, more transparent, and built for their exact workloads. That’s why 2026 will be a major year for cloud repatriation back to regional providers and bare-metal platforms built for performance.”

Prediction 3: GPU Optimization and AI-Driven Attacks Will Push Companies Toward Regional Cloud Providers for Security and Stability

“GPU optimization becomes a headline topic in 2026. Today, most companies only use about 60 percent of the GPU power for which they are paying. Next-gen optimization software is going to flip that on its head, giving organizations the ability to squeeze full value out of their infrastructure. That matters not just for cost control, but for AI reliability. When your model performance becomes a competitive advantage, you can’t afford wasted compute, unpredictable throttling, or hardware carved into fractional units you can’t see. This is where optimized IaaS and regional GPU clouds start to shine. 

At the same time, attackers are getting smarter, and they’re starting to use AI too. The largest, most complex cloud environments become the biggest targets – when bad actors can spin up their own LLMs. Hyperscalers have hundreds of thousands of tenants, which means hundreds of thousands of potential attack surfaces (and pockets to pick). Regional providers have tighter vetting, cleaner environments, and fewer noisy neighbors. In 2026, security-conscious organizations will realize that the safest place to run AI and high-value workloads often isn’t the biggest cloud, it’s the one that actually keeps out the wrong people.”

I have three 2026 Predictions from Roger Brulotte, CEO of Leaseweb Canada and they are as follows:

Prediction 1: AI Adoption Becomes Mandatory, Driving a Surge in GPU Demand and New Canadian Sovereign AI Infrastructure

“In 2026, AI stops being something companies experiment with and becomes something they cannot operate without. Last year many organizations were still standing at a distance, watching early adopters figure things out. This year the conversation shifts entirely. AI becomes essential for internal productivity, external services, and even competitive survival. That is going to create a major jump in demand for Canadian GPU infrastructure, especially for companies trying to train or fine-tune their own models. A lot of medium-sized and smaller businesses are going to realize fast that they simply cannot train modern AI workloads on their existing on-prem environments without blowing up their capex.

We’re also seeing a new pattern emerge. Labs, universities, and R&D teams are building and training models, then handing the commercialized version back to the customer through a licensing model or revenue-share arrangement. That shift speeds up AI adoption but also pushes organizations toward Canadian sovereign infrastructure, because they want assurance that their data and training environments stay within national borders. With the federal government investing heavily in local AI infrastructure and sovereign cloud, 2026 becomes the year when Canadian companies start saying not just ‘we want AI’ but ‘we need AI inside Canada.’”

Prediction 2: Organizations Finally Move Away from the Misconception That Hyperscalers Guarantee Sovereignty and Continuity

“One of the biggest misconceptions the industry sheds in 2026 is the belief that putting everything in a hyperscaler automatically solves compliance, sovereignty, and business continuity. Canadian companies are starting to understand that hyperscalers were never designed to guarantee Canadian data stays in Canada. Between legal exposure, jurisdictional questions, and the very real desire to keep national data under national control, executives are rethinking long-held assumptions. The news cycle has played a big role. Everyone is seeing outages, policy changes, and security incidents that hit thousands of tenants at once, and they are asking harder questions about risk.

As that awareness grows, diversification becomes the new best practice. Instead of trusting that a single global provider will protect them, companies are looking at hybrid models with a mix of colocation, Canadian infrastructure as a service, and selective use of hyperscalers for the workloads that actually warrant it. They want partners who pick up the phone. They want providers who understand sovereignty rules and who can build infrastructure tailored to their exact needs instead of forcing predefined catalogue options. In 2026, the industry moves past the idea that ‘no one gets fired for choosing a hyperscaler’ and recognizes that the safer long-term choice is diversification.”

Prediction 3: Hybrid and Multi-Provider Strategies Replace Status Quo Thinking as Companies Seek Flexibility, Cost Control, and Choice

“The most important advice for 2026 is simple. Stop repeating last year’s plan. The companies that future-proof their infrastructure are the ones that stop doing status quo renewals and start exploring the wider market. We meet too many teams who lift and shift everything into one cloud only to discover that the exact infrastructure they needed isn’t available, or the price structure doesn’t match their usage pattern. Once they are in, they start buying workarounds, and suddenly the cost balloons far beyond what they expected. The lesson organizations take into 2026 is that you need partners who ask what problem you are trying to solve before they tell you what to buy.

Likewise, companies are getting smarter about how they evaluate providers. They want flexibility, custom design options, and the ability to scale without being locked into one commercial model. Moreover, they want a partner who can support them not only in their home region but as they expand into new markets. And last but certainly not least, they want real human support – not just a portal. The winning infrastructure strategies in 2026 will be hybrid, diversified, and designed around actual workloads instead of one-size-fits-all catalogs. The only ones that will remain cost-effective, resilient, and competitive will be those that embrace that flexibility.”

 Leaseweb today announced the availability of NVIDIA L4 GPUs in its Public Cloud platform in the United States and Canada. Already available in Europe, this marks the expansion of GPU acceleration to Leaseweb’s sovereign cloud infrastructure across North America, extending its AI-ready cloud beyond dedicated servers and empowering organizations to run demanding workloads with greater performance, as well as more flexibility and cost efficiency.

The NVIDIA L4 is a versatile GPU that accelerates processing for AI inference, machine learning (ML), video rendering, graphics, and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). By introducing L4 GPUs across its North American public cloud, Leaseweb enables customers to scale their GPU usage as needed for variable or short-term projects, while continuing to offer transparent pricing and flexible pay-per-use billing models.

Customers can choose instances with between one and four GPUs, paired with multiple CPU and disk configurations. With 99.99 percent availability and no vendor lock-in, Leaseweb’s GPU-enabled public cloud gives businesses the ability to scale usage on demand – offering a familiar instance structure at a cost that Leaseweb estimates to be up to 30 percent lower than comparable hyperscaler solutions.

Leaseweb Canada will showcase its new NVIDIA L4 GPU-powered public cloud capabilities at SAAS NORTH 2025, taking place November 5–6 at the Rogers Centre in Ottawa, Canada. As Canada’s premier SaaS event – where the fastest-growing SaaS founders, executives, investors, and innovators come to learn, connect, and scale – SAAS NORTH offers the perfect stage to demonstrate how Leaseweb is delivering sovereign, high-performance AI infrastructure built for Canadian innovators. Attendees can meet the Leaseweb team in Booth #C150.

By Roger Brulotte, CEO, Leaseweb Canada

Data can zip across borders and into the cloud in the blink of an eye. But as convenient as that is, it’s also raising some important questions – especially around something called data sovereignty. Sounds like something only governments or giant corporations need to worry about, right? Not quite. This issue actually touches every business, no matter the size. And if you’re operating in Canada or working with Canadian customers, it’s something you really can’t afford to ignore.

So, what’s data sovereignty all about? In plain terms, it means your data is bound by the laws of the country where it actually lives. If that’s Canada, then your data needs to follow Canadian rules, specifically, a law called PIPEDA (yep, it’s a mouthful: the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act). This law lays out how businesses are supposed to collect, use, and protect personal information. For any company operating in Canada, or even just working with Canadian customers, keeping data on Canadian soil helps make sure it’s covered by Canadian protections, not someone else’s rules. It’s really about keeping control and keeping things simple.

Busting the Big Business Myth

A lot of people think data sovereignty is only something big corporations need to worry about. And yes, those companies usually have full teams dedicated to legal and data compliance. But small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) face their own set of challenges. In fact, data sovereignty can be even more important for them. Why? Because SMBs often depend on outside cloud providers and might not have the in-house expertise to untangle all the rules around storing data across borders. That makes it even more important to know where your data is – and who has access to it.

If you’re an SMB, ask yourself: Do you know where your customer data is being stored? Who might have jurisdiction over it? If the answer is “not really,” it might be time to dig deeper.

What to Look for in a Cloud Provider

When you’re picking a cloud or infrastructure provider, it’s super easy to get swept up in the big, shiny certifications… things like ISO/IEC 27001 or SOC 2. And don’t get us wrong, those are good signs. They show that a provider is thinking about privacy and security. But if you really want to know your data is safe, those logos shouldn’t be the end of the conversation.

What really matters is this: Can your provider give you a straight answer about where your data lives?

Not a vague “we follow best practices” kind of answer, but something specific. Can they tell you if your data is sitting in a server just outside Toronto, or floating around in a data center overseas? Can they walk you through who has access to it, and how they’re keeping it locked down, without slipping into a bunch of tech-speak that leaves you more confused than reassured?

If the answers feel fuzzy or dodgy, trust your gut. It’s okay to press for clarity.

Also, take a minute to consider the bigger picture. Does this provider actually have data centers in Canada? Who owns the company behind the scenes? And what happens if there’s a political shakeup in the country where your data is stored? These might sound like “worst-case-scenario” questions, but they’re worth asking because they help you stay in control no matter what.

You don’t need to be an IT expert or a legal pro to have this conversation. You just need to care about protecting your business and the people who trust you with their information. Asking where your data lives and how it’s being handled isn’t overthinking. It’s smart, responsible, and exactly what today’s leaders should be doing.

Why Cloud Repatriation is on the Rise

Lately, a lot of companies have been hitting pause and rethinking their cloud game. More and more, we’re seeing a shift toward what’s called cloud repatriation, which is just a fancy way of saying they’re pulling some of their data and apps out of the big public cloud and bringing them back home. Sometimes that means going fully in-house, sometimes it’s a mix, a hybrid setup. Why the change? It usually comes down to wanting more control, clearer visibility, and honestly, fewer surprise bills.

Public cloud solutions are great for scalability, but they can also lead to surprises: unexpected fees, limited control, and compliance headaches. Hybrid models, on the other hand, offer a balance – keeping sensitive data local while taking advantage of cloud flexibility where it makes sense.

According to a recent IDC report, nearly 80% of businesses are planning to bring at least some of their data back from the public cloud in the next year. That’s not just a trend… it’s a sign that companies are getting more intentional about where their data lives. It’s a smart, strategic shift toward setups that give them more control, better compliance, and fewer surprises.

Industries That Care (and Why You Should Too)

It’s true that certain industries – like finance, healthcare, and government – have more stringent compliance requirements. But frankly, any organization that collects personal data should care about where that data lives. Data sovereignty helps protect that information from being accessed or compromised due to international politics, provider shutdowns, or legal loopholes.

In sectors like healthcare, the bar is even higher. In Canada, for example, patient records must remain within the country, regardless of whether the institution is public or private. It’s about trust, compliance, and ethics – all rolled into one.

Parting Thoughts…

At the end of the day, data sovereignty isn’t just something for the IT folks to deal with… it’s far bigger than that. Business leaders need to be in the loop too. After all, knowing where your data lives, who can get to it, and how it’s being protected isn’t just some technical detail. It’s about trust, staying compliant, and making sure your business can keep running smoothly – no matter what.

With regulations tightening and digital risks popping up left and right, the companies that come out ahead are the ones asking the smart questions before diving into the cloud. It’s not about being scared… it’s about being smart, prepared, and in the driver’s seat.

Leaseweb, a leading cloud services and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provider, today shared a major update on its contribution to the EU’s Important Projects of Common European Interest on Cloud Infrastructure and Services (IPCEI-CIS). With its European Cloud Campus project, Leaseweb is actively building the foundation for a sovereign European cloud – designed to protect sensitive data, comply with EU regulations, and ensure that Europe’s digital infrastructure is no longer dependent on US providers.

In the last nine months, Leaseweb has made an industry-leading contribution to the IPCEI-CIS initiative, including developing powerful and flexible cloud infrastructure. This includes creating a scalable compute platform with enhanced automation capabilities, including an open API to streamline automation initially for virtual machines, with plans to integrate physical servers and storage in 2025-26. The company has also developed data integration tools for interaction with public cloud compute services, with ongoing enhancements for greater efficiency and scalability. Additionally, Leaseweb has created a flexible, multi-tenant system for running applications, enabling independent operations within shared clusters. This incorporates backend services and a scalable container platform, currently in beta, with full integration expected in 2025. These activities form the foundation for new, sovereign cloud services in Europe.

As the platform expands, Leaseweb continues to enhance management tools, ensuring an intuitive and adaptable cloud environment, further expanding compute and storage capabilities with increased automation and flexibility. Strengthening the integration between compute and container platforms will be a key priority, allowing for more efficient operations. In addition, Leaseweb is committed to enhancing monitoring and self-healing features, ensuring the cloud infrastructure remains resilient, scalable, and future-proof.