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> Is 20b euro enough to be a real alternative?

Since we're talking about Europe, my first instinct here is that I want to double-check what they mean by "billion"[1].

This article being in English makes me assume short scale, but SAP being German makes it possible (even if unlikely) that it could be a mistranslation that everyone else just copied.

If only any of these articles could link to a source. But searching for literal quotes doesn't seem to return any authoritative source, or even any transcripts (if this was announced verbally).

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales#German-s...



The alternative of 10^12 (trillion) seems a stretch to say the least.


here is the original announcement: https://news.sap.com/germany/2025/09/sap-souveraene-cloudang...

and the relevant quote: "Durch eine langfristige Investition von über 20 Milliarden Euro setzt SAP einen klaren strategischen Fokus auf digitale Souveränität."

"more than 20000 million euros"


Thanks!

> 20 Milliarden Euro

Yep, so the source uses the long scale "milliard" and the translations use short scale "billion", it checks out.


Indeed, Continental billion is 1e12, not 1e9.

The idea of SAP spending 20e12 EUR seems hard to believe.


As someone from a country that supposedly uses billion as 1e12, the last time I've seen anyone do it was 2005, and that was in a book from the 1960s.


They aren’t not spending the GDP of the EU on a cloud.

Short form is the norm these days all over Europe.




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