> Why did Airbus go to "the cloud" in the first place?

The same reason that so many companies went to "the cloud", because the hyperscalers warpped the C-suite round their little finger.

There are two things any C-suite like doing that the hyperscalers could help them tick boxes on.

First, shifting capex to opex. They love doing that because of the accounting treatment. Opex goes into your P&L, so it reduces your taxable profit and therefore it reduces your tax bill. Meanwhile capex goes onto the balance sheet and is deprecated over the asset's life, so the "only" benefit you might get is to claim allowances (e.g. R&D) from your tax authority.

Second, it allows lots of things to be made "someone else's problem". Security ? Their problem. Staff ? Their problem. Tick-boxes to keep the compliance department happy ? Their problem.

So the hyperscalers can turn up and spin a ready-made story that the C-suite will lap up. Perhaps accompanied by a nice lunch and a round of golf. ;)

There is no doubt, companies such as Airbus have the technical competence and the financial means to do it all in-house. Sadly the C-suite calls the shots ....