I agree it's a funny look, but my guess is that it comes down to the cross-border data transfers and non-EEA tech providers. So even if Apple has private cloud compute and is using Gemini models, there are probably a lot of legal hoops to jump through and/or European-based data centers to spin up?
They have some for sure for iCloud. Do they have enough to handle this volume of compute AND is Gemini allowed to be run on those? That was more what I was questioning/curious about.