The demand for digital sovereignty is growing rapidly in Europe. Governments, regulated industries and large organisations are increasingly seeking greater control over their data: where it is stored, who has access to it and under which legislation it falls. Microsoft is responding to this with a major expansion of its Sovereign Cloud offering, which includes both public and private cloud solutions.
On June 16, 2025, Microsoft officially announced this expansion. The new services are aimed at providing European organizations with more control, easier regulatory compliance and greater digital resilience.
What's new?
1. Sovereign Public Cloud – now available across Europe
Microsoft’s public cloud is now available to all European customers, with data stored and processed entirely within European borders. What’s unique about this is that access to this data is only granted to staff based in the EU. The introduction of Date Guardian enhances this control with real-time monitoring and logging of remote access.
2. Microsoft 365 Local
This solution enables you to run familiar Microsoft productivity tools – such as Exchange Server and SharePoint Server – in your own datacenter or in a controlled local cloud environment. This provides maximum autonomy and meets the most stringent data protection and compliance requirements.
3. External Key Management
This feature gives you full control over encryption keys, which you can store in a Hardware Security Module (HSM) on-site or with a recognized third party. Microsoft works with vendors such as Thales, Utimaco and Futurex to achieve this.
4. Regulated Environment Management
This management environment enables you to manage all compliance-related settings – such as access policies and logging – in a clear manner. This simplifies the setup and monitoring of a sovereign cloud environment.
5. National partner clouds in France and Germany
In France, Microsoft works with Bleu (a joint venture between Orange and Capgemini), and in Germany with Delos Cloud (an SAP subsidiary). Both offer locally managed Microsoft cloud solutions that comply with national regulations.
What does this mean for your organization?
The new Sovereign Cloud services can deliver significant strategic added value for you:
- More control over where and how your data is stored and processed
- A simplified path to compliance with European and national regulations
- Greater resilience to geopolitical risks and technical disruptions
At the same time, it is important to remain critical:
- Which workloads exactly do these options apply to?
- What are the implications for your current licensing model?
- Are there any additional costs associated with these new services?
For organizations in regulated industries or with international compliance obligations, now is the time to reevaluate their cloud strategy.
With this expansion, Microsoft makes it clear that digital sovereignty is no longer a niche need, but a strategic foundation for European organizations. By combining new tools, local services and additional controls, a cloud approach is created in which you are at the helm.
Want to know what these changes mean for your cloud strategy or licensing terms?
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