Best GPU Cloud in Europe (2026): GDPR, DPAs & Real Prices
Which European GPU clouds will sign an Article 28 DPA, how you actually get one, where your data is processed, and what Hetzner, OVHcloud, Scaleway and RunPod charge. Verified August 2026.
Almost every GPU host claims GDPR compliance. Far fewer will hand you the one document Article 28 actually requires: a signed data processing agreement naming them as your processor. The gap between the marketing page and the paperwork is where most European procurement stalls.
Below are the providers with EU capacity, what they charge, and the part nobody publishes: how you get a DPA out of each one.
European GPU providers compared
| Provider | Starting price | GPUs available | Processing locations | DPA route | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hetzner GPU | from €1.42/h | RTX 4000 SFF Ada, RTX PRO 6000 | DE (Nuremberg, Falkenstein), FI (Helsinki) | Concluded in your account portal | EU data residency, long-running jobs |
| OVHcloud | from €0.36/h | T4, V100, A100 | FR, DE, PL, UK, CA | Part of the contract framework | Established EU sovereignty guarantees |
| Scaleway | from €0.79/h | L4, L40S, H100 | FR (PAR-1, PAR-2) | French entity, standard DPA | Newer silicon inside France |
| RunPod | from $0.16/h | RTX 3090/4090, A40, L40S, A100, H100 | US, EU, CA | Sign and email it back | Price, if residency is soft |
Getting a DPA is not the same effort everywhere
This is the practical difference, and it decides your timeline more than price does.
Hetzner concludes the agreement inside the customer account at accounts.hetzner.com/account/dpa. No email thread, no legal review cycle. Once concluded, the audit report becomes available through the same portal. Hetzner holds ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and a BSI C5 Type 2 attestation, and is classified by the BSI as an operator of critical services under German KRITIS rules.
OVHcloud treats the DPA as complementary to the main agreement, defining the conditions under which it acts as an Article 28 processor. Its ISO/IEC 27001 certification is supplemented by ISO/IEC 27017 and 27018, and ISO/IEC 27701 now covers services in every OVHcloud datacenter except the US ones.
RunPod is the one to plan around. Its DPA must be completed, signed and emailed back before it binds: the agreement states it “shall become legally binding only upon completion of all such steps,” and customer edits to the text prevent formation entirely. Transfers run on SCC Module Two (controller to processor) under Irish law.
There is a second RunPod caveat worth reading twice. The DPA does not promise your workload stays in the EU. Where you specify a region, RunPod will use “reasonable efforts to allocate a server in a geographically proximate location.” That is a best-effort clause, not residency. If your DPIA assumes EU-only processing, that assumption is not contractually backed.
Where the money actually goes
Scaleway’s L4-1-24G runs €0.79/h in PAR-1, verified against scaleway.com/en/pricing/gpu on 3 August 2026. The catch is zoning: L40S, H100 and B300-SXM are not offered in PAR-1 at all and sit in PAR-2. Pick the zone before you write the Terraform, not after.
OVHcloud’s €0.36/h floor is the cheapest genuine EU entry point here, but it buys a T4. The lineup still leans on V100s, which is fine for inference and increasingly awkward for anything you would train in 2026.
Hetzner at €1.42/h is not competing on price, and reading it as expensive misses what it is. These are dedicated machines rather than shared cloud VMs, billed from €889/month for an RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell 96GB. For a job that runs continuously for weeks, the hourly comparison against a marketplace flatters the marketplace.
RunPod’s $0.16/h floor undercuts every EU provider on this page by a wide margin. Whether that is available to you is a legal question, not a technical one — see the residency clause above.
For the wider field including non-EU hosts, see our full GPU cloud comparison, the Hetzner GPU review and the Scaleway review.
FAQ
Which European GPU providers offer a data processing agreement?
Hetzner, OVHcloud, Scaleway and RunPod all publish one. They differ in how you execute it: Hetzner concludes it self-service inside the account portal, OVHcloud folds it into the contract framework, and RunPod requires you to sign a copy and return it by email before it takes effect. Budget days rather than minutes for any route that involves countersignature.
Does a US-headquartered provider with EU datacenters satisfy GDPR?
It can, but the datacenter location alone does not settle it. You need an Article 28 processor agreement, a valid transfer mechanism for any access from outside the EEA, and, if residency matters to your assessment, a contractual commitment to the region rather than a best-effort clause. RunPod covers the first two via SCCs but not the third.
Is Hetzner’s GPU offering a cloud service?
No, and this trips people up when they compare hourly rates. The GEX line is dedicated server hardware on a monthly contract, not an on-demand VM you can destroy after an hour. You get the whole machine and you pay for the whole month.
Which GPUs can I actually get inside France?
Scaleway serves L4 from PAR-1 and puts L40S, H100 and B300-SXM in PAR-2. OVHcloud offers T4, V100 and A100 across its French sites. If you need an H100 without leaving French jurisdiction, PAR-2 is the answer.