Overview
- The new Sovereign Public, Sovereign Private and National Partner Clouds are designed to keep all customer data in Europe under local employee control.
- Hardware security modules from Utimaco and partnerships with government-approved providers such as Delos Cloud will enable client-side encryption and regulated operations.
- The Data Guardian protocol restricts administrative access to Europe-based staff and mandates local approval for any non-EU access requests.
- Vice-chairman Brad Smith has committed to legally contest any US federal demands under the Cloud Act that conflict with European cloud operations.
- The rollout forms part of Microsoft’s broader strategy to address EU businesses’ sovereignty concerns and reduce reliance on US technology providers.