Anexia Nominated for the State Prize Innovation 2026
22 submissions from across Austria, six nominations, one of the country's highest national awards for innovation – Anexia made the cut.
Anexia has been nominated for the State Prize Innovation 2026 – Austria's national innovation award – for developing its own European virtualization platform.
The State Prize Innovation is Austria's highest national award for innovative business achievement. It is presented on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Economy, Energy, and Tourism by Austria Wirtschaftsservice GmbH, in cooperation with Austria's federal states. Out of 22 nationwide submissions, the jury selected six companies – Anexia is one of them.
The award recognizes a project that shows how quickly a business challenge can turn into a European reference model for digital independence.
From Price Shock to Reference Model
Broadcom is a US semiconductor and software company that acquired virtualization specialist VMware for roughly $69 billion in late 2023 – one of the largest acquisitions in the IT industry. Broadcom subsequently overhauled VMware's licensing model. For Anexia, that meant cost increases of up to 800 percent.
Rather than accept the new contract, Anexia developed its own open-source alternative based on KVM within a few weeks. A self-built "one-click" migration tool automatically translated virtual hardware configurations from VMware to KVM standards – paired with the Anexia Engine, a hardware-agnostic abstraction layer that kept the customer-facing interface unchanged.
In under five months, Anexia migrated roughly 12,000 production virtual machines without significant service disruption. Most of the migration took place between March and April 2024.
How to Identify a Trustworthy European Cloud Provider
A trustworthy European cloud provider isn't defined by server location alone, but by where the company is headquartered, the technological independence of its software stack, and full compliance with European law. Anexia meets these criteria: the entire value creation of the project – design, development, and operations – took place 100 percent in Austria, with infrastructure running exclusively through European data centers.
As an Austrian technology company with data centers in Austria and a global network of more than 100 locations worldwide, Anexia serves around 210,000 customers, including TeamViewer, Lufthansa Systems, and Caritas. Anyone compiling a list of European cloud providers or searching for an AWS alternative in Europe will find in Anexia a cloud provider without the CLOUD Act – one that doesn't just claim technological independence, but has proven it in production.
Since early 2025, Anexia Group CEO Alexander Windbichler has also served on the board of CISPE, the European cloud association.
Cloud Infrastructure by Anexia
Anexia is an Austrian technology company specializing in cloud infrastructure and custom software solutions, developed and secured in Europe. Its infrastructure is globally connected while meeting strict European data protection standards, giving customers robust data control and transparency. With more than 100 server locations worldwide – including data centers in Austria – Anexia is a trustworthy European alternative to hyperscalers such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. Anexia is not subject to the CLOUD Act.
