Microsoft Reveals Comprehensive Sovereign Cloud Solutions to Empower European Organizations in 2025

Microsoft has taken a significant leap forward in its commitment to European data sovereignty, unveiling a comprehensive suite of new cloud solutions designed to give organizations across the continent greater control, robust privacy, and enhanced digital resilience. The announcement, made by Judson Althoff, Microsoft’s Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, marks a pivotal moment in the evolution of cloud services for regulated sectors, governments, and enterprises operating in Europe.

A New Era of Sovereign Cloud for Europe

Building on its 42-year legacy in Europe, Microsoft is expanding its Sovereign Cloud offerings to span both public and private digital infrastructure. This empowers customers to tailor the right balance of control, compliance, and capability for their unique needs—whether in the public cloud, private environments, or through national partnerships.

The new Sovereign Cloud suite includes:

• Data Guardian for European Operations: Enhanced oversight and control over remote access to data, ensuring only European-resident Microsoft personnel can approve and monitor access, with all activity logged in a tamper-evident ledger.

• External Key Management: Customer-controlled encryption, allowing organizations to manage their own encryption keys using on-premises or third-party Hardware Security Modules (HSMs), with support from leading manufacturers such as Futurex, Thales, and Utimaco.

• Regulated Environment Management: A unified interface for configuring, deploying, and monitoring workloads, centralizing the management of sovereign features like Data Guardian and access logs.

• Microsoft 365 Local: The ability to run Microsoft’s productivity servers—including Exchange and SharePoint—entirely within a customer’s own datacenter or sovereign cloud environment, powered by Azure Local.

Sovereign Public Cloud: Data Stays in Europe, Under European Law

Microsoft’s Sovereign Public Cloud is an evolution of its Cloud for Sovereignty, now available across all European datacenter regions for all customers. This ensures data residency within Europe, legal compliance under European law, and operational control by European personnel. Importantly, this model does not require migration or duplicate systems, allowing organizations to leverage the full power of Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Security, and Power Platform without sacrificing innovation or access to cutting-edge technologies like AI.

With the Sovereign Public Cloud, all customer workloads running in European datacenters benefit from these controls, with new features rolling out later this year as the service moves from preview to general availability.

Sovereign Private Cloud: Full Control with Azure Local and Microsoft 365 Local

Recognizing that some organizations require even stricter control—such as governments, critical industries, and regulated sectors—Microsoft is introducing the Sovereign Private Cloud. This solution, currently in preview, brings Microsoft cloud services directly to customer locations through Azure Local, supporting business continuity and data residency requirements.

Azure Local delivers core Azure capabilities (compute, storage, networking, virtualization) in-country, on-premises, or in partner-operated datacenters. Microsoft 365 Local, built on this platform, enables organizations to run trusted productivity workloads in environments they fully control, ensuring security, compliance, and governance at the highest levels.

National Partner Clouds: Trusted Partnerships in France and Germany

Microsoft’s commitment to sovereignty extends through National Partner Clouds, operated independently in partnership with leading local companies:

• France: In collaboration with Bleu—a joint venture between Orange and Capgemini—Microsoft delivers a “cloud de confiance” for the French public sector and critical infrastructure, designed to meet stringent SecNumCloud standards.

• Germany: Partnering with Delos Cloud, an SAP subsidiary, Microsoft provides a sovereign cloud environment tailored to the German government’s Cloud Platform Requirements.

These partnerships ensure that even the most sensitive workloads can be managed in compliance with national regulations, using the full capabilities of Microsoft 365 and Azure.

New Tools for Data Privacy and Security

Data Guardian adds a new layer of assurance to Microsoft’s EU Data Boundary, ensuring that only European-resident personnel can approve and monitor remote access to systems storing and processing European data. All such activities are tracked in real time and logged immutably, providing transparency and accountability.

External Key Management empowers customers to control their own encryption keys, connecting Azure to HSMs managed on-premises or by trusted third parties. This guarantees that encryption and access to sensitive data remain entirely within the customer’s control.

Regulated Environment Management centralizes the configuration and oversight of all these sovereign features, streamlining compliance for organizations operating in highly regulated environments.

Building a Sovereign Cloud and AI Partner Ecosystem

To help European customers implement and operate these sovereign solutions, Microsoft is launching a new Sovereign Cloud specialization in its AI Cloud Partner Program. This will make it easier for customers to identify partners with proven expertise in supporting sovereignty requirements on Microsoft technology.

Preview partners include Accenture, Arvato Systems, Atea, Atos, Crayon, Capgemini, Dell Technologies, IBM, Inspark, Infosys, Lenovo, Leonardo, NTT Data, Orange, Telefonica, and Vodafone, reflecting a broad and growing ecosystem of trusted collaborators.

Industry and Partner Endorsements

Aiman Ezzat, CEO of Capgemini Group, emphasized the significance of this launch:

“The launch of Microsoft Sovereign Cloud marks a pivotal moment in empowering European institutions and industries with the control, compliance and innovation they need to thrive in today’s digital economy. As a shareholder of Bleu, we have already set up a National Partner Cloud in France to deliver Microsoft technologies in a sovereign environment that respects the French State requirements. Together, we are enabling a trusted digital future for Europe.”

Delivering Digital Stability Amid Geopolitical Volatility

Microsoft’s expanded Sovereign Cloud offerings are grounded in its European Digital Commitments, providing customers with the broadest set of sovereignty solutions on the market. The company is committed to ongoing innovation and open dialogue with customers, policymakers, and regulators to ensure European organizations can operate with confidence, even in times of geopolitical uncertainty.

What This Means for European Organizations

For enterprises, governments, and regulated sectors across Europe, Microsoft’s new Sovereign Cloud solutions represent a major step forward in:

• Meeting strict data residency and compliance requirements

• Maintaining operational autonomy and resilience

• Leveraging the latest cloud and AI innovations without compromise

• Gaining unprecedented transparency and control over data access and security

With these new offerings, Microsoft is setting a new standard for digital sovereignty, empowering European organizations to grow, compete, and lead in the global digital economy—on their own terms.