Snowflake Achieves HDS Certification in France, Helping Healthcare Organizations Accelerate Data and AI Innovation
For healthcare organizations in France, data innovation and regulatory compliance have long pulled in opposite directions. Strict requirements governing the hosting of health data have made it difficult to consolidate clinical, research and operational data on modern cloud infrastructure. Today, that changes.
Snowflake has achieved Hébergeur de Données de Santé (HDS) Certification Version 2, covering health data workloads running on the Snowflake AI Data Cloud.
This milestone represents an important step in Snowflake's continued investment in highly regulated industries and helps healthcare and life sciences organizations in France use the Snowflake AI Data Cloud for eligible workloads that require health data hosting capabilities.
"Healthcare and life sciences organizations across France are increasingly turning to data and AI to accelerate innovation, improve patient outcomes and drive operational excellence. Many of France's leading healthcare and life sciences organizations already use Snowflake as part of their data strategy. Achieving HDS certification reinforces our long-term commitment to supporting this ecosystem with the trusted foundation organizations need to securely collaborate, innovate and realize the full value of their data in a highly regulated environment."
—Arnaud Chiffert, Country Manager, France, Snowflake
Supporting France's healthcare and life sciences ecosystem
France is home to one of Europe's leading healthcare and life sciences sectors, spanning healthcare providers, pharmaceutical companies, health insurers, research institutions and a rapidly growing digital health ecosystem.
Across these organizations, data has become critical to advancing clinical research, improving care delivery, strengthening population health initiatives, combating fraud, enabling secure collaboration and supporting the next generation of AI-powered applications.
Yet many organizations continue to face challenges bringing together data across fragmented systems while maintaining the governance, security and compliance requirements associated with sensitive health information.
HDS certification helps address an important part of this challenge by providing a framework specifically designed for health data hosting in France.
What Snowflake's HDS certification covers
Snowflake's HDS certification applies to the management system supporting the information security of the Snowflake AI Data Cloud and supporting processes.
The certified scope includes:
Physical sites hosting the hardware infrastructure used to process health data
Hardware infrastructure used to process health data
Platforms hosting information system applications
Virtual infrastructure used to process health data
The certification supports eligible healthcare workloads deployed on Snowflake regions in the European Economic Area (EEA).
Looking beyond France
HDS is a French-specific standard, but the compliance challenges it addresses are part of a broader European shift.
As the European Health Data Space (EHDS) initiative advances, healthcare organizations are seeking trusted data foundations that support secure collaboration, interoperability and governance across healthcare ecosystems. Snowflake's HDS certification represents another step in helping organizations build with confidence in highly regulated environments, supporting healthcare organizations as they prepare for a more connected and data-driven future.
For healthcare providers, life sciences organizations, health insurers and digital health innovators operating across Europe, the ability to securely collaborate on data while maintaining organizational governance controls will be important for accelerating research, improving patient outcomes and driving innovation.
Innovation already underway
Across the sector, organizations are already using Snowflake to transform how they collaborate on data, accelerate research and bring AI closer to the point of decision-making.
In France, Sanofi is using Snowflake to reinvent how it operates, from R&D to manufacturing to commercial. Its research teams use Snowflake to process real-world clinical data at scale, accelerating the analysis behind drug development decisions. HDS certification strengthens Snowflake's ability to support workloads like these across France's healthcare ecosystem.
Globally, organizations such as Roche, Pfizer, NHS in the UK, Siemens Healthineers and Bupa are using Snowflake to support scientific research, healthcare innovation, secure data collaboration and data-driven decision-making across increasingly complex healthcare ecosystems, supporting initiatives aimed at improving care delivery, access to insights and healthcare innovation.
These examples reflect a broader industry shift toward trusted, governed data foundations that can support advanced analytics, secure collaboration and AI innovation at scale.
New opportunities for data collaboration and AI
Healthcare innovation depends on the ability to securely connect and collaborate on data across organizations.
Healthcare providers are seeking to create more connected patient experiences and improve operational performance. Life sciences organizations are accelerating clinical research and real-world evidence initiatives. Health insurers are investing in advanced analytics to improve claims processing, fraud detection and member services. Digital health innovators are building new applications powered by data and AI.
Snowflake helps organizations securely collaborate on governed data, giving teams the insights they need while maintaining control and governance.
These capabilities support a wide range of use cases across the sector, including:
Clinical and research data collaboration
Real-world evidence and outcomes research
Population health analytics
Healthcare AI and machine learning initiatives
Health insurance analytics and fraud detection
Secure data sharing across healthcare ecosystems
Building the future of healthcare with partners
For partners helping French healthcare organizations navigate digital transformation, HDS certification helps address a significant barrier to more ambitious data and AI work.
“As healthcare and life sciences organizations transform their data foundations to support research and development — including in the field of AI — enhance the personalization of care journeys, and embrace new models of population health, data becomes increasingly critical to drive data-centric modernization.
These transformations must comply with stringent regulations that uphold France’s ethical principles in digital health. Snowflake’s achievement of HDS certification marks a key milestone for the French healthcare ecosystem. It provides organizations with proven, real-world solutions to accelerate advanced analytics and AI initiatives while supporting strong data protection practices.
As a recognized partner in the transformation of the French healthcare ecosystem, we look forward to collaborating with Snowflake to leverage these capabilities. Together, we aim to support healthcare providers, life sciences companies, public institutions, medtech organizations and innovators in unlocking the full value of health data for the benefit of all.”
—Loïc Chabanier, Partner, EY
Join us at Snowflake World Tour
Healthcare and life sciences leaders are reimagining how data, AI and secure collaboration can improve patient outcomes, accelerate research and transform operations.
At Snowflake World Tour Berlin, London and Paris this September and October, attendees will have the opportunity to explore dedicated healthcare and life sciences content, hear from industry experts and learn how organizations across the healthcare ecosystem are using data and AI to drive meaningful innovation.
We look forward to working with healthcare providers, life sciences organizations, health insurers, digital health innovators and partners across France and Europe as they continue to build the future of healthcare with the Snowflake AI Data Cloud.
To view or obtain a copy of our HDS Certification, please visit our Compliance Center.
