With demand growing among enterprises for tighter control over their internal and customer data, both AWS and IBM have unveiled new data sovereignty offerings initially focused on the EU.
AWS Launches New Company for Independent European Sovereign Cloud
Amazon has announced the general availability of its AWS European Sovereign Cloud, a cloud environment that is separate from other AWS Regions and located completely within the European Union. The first region is live in Brandenburg, Germany, and Amazon plans to extend sovereign AWS Local Zones into Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal.
The service is purpose-built so that enterprises can to deploy their own secured and compliant automated environments.
According to AWS, the European Sovereign Cloud is operated exclusively by EU residents and keeps all customer metadata within EU borders. There is “zero” operational control outside of the EU’s borders, the company said. It is designed to continue operating independently even in the event of a broader communications disruption.
Amazon has established a new parent company and three local subsidiaries incorporated in Germany, including an advisory board of three Amazon employees and two independent members providing “expertise and accountability on sovereignty-related matters”.
The service will initially offer more than 90 AWS services across compute, storage, networking, security, databases, and AI.
Amazon said that its global cloud and AI infrastructure have been sovereign by design “from day one”, and “most customers are able to meet their requirements using one of the six existing AWS Regions in the EU.” But the growing industry focus on data sovereignty has prompted the company to launch an explicit offering, according to the announcement.
“The AWS European Sovereign Cloud is designed to give customers additional choice to meet the EU’s stringent sovereignty requirements without compromising on the robust capabilities of AWS.”
AWS Local Zones enable customers to store their data in a specific geographic location to comply with requirements for data residency and latency-sensitive applications. The zones will extend the sovereignty controls from the AWS Region in Germany across the EU.
Customers that have more stringent requirements for the data they store will have the option to use AWS Dedicated Local Zones, AWS AI Factories or AWS Outposts in the locations they need, including their own on-prem data centers.
The AWS European Sovereign Cloud allows customers to keep all the metadata they create, such as roles, permissions, resource labels, and configurations entirely in the EU, including sovereign Identity and Access Management (IAM), billing, and usage metering systems.
Like other AWS Regions, the sovereign cloud is powered by the AWS Nitro System, which provides strong physical and logical security to enforce access restrictions. AWS also provides advanced encryption, key management services, and hardware security modules to protect content.
To support customer’s businesses continuity even in the event of extreme incidents, authorised AWS European Sovereign Cloud employees will have independent access to a replica of the source code needed to maintain the services.
Amazon has previously announced plans to invest more than €7.8BN in the German sovereign cloud over the long term. The expansion to Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal will involve an additional planned investment.
Stéphane Israël, Managing Director of the AWS European Sovereign Cloud and Digital Sovereignty, said:
“Customers want the best of both worlds – they want to be able to use AWS's full portfolio of cloud and AI services while ensuring they can meet their stringent sovereignty requirements.”
“By building a cloud that is European in its infrastructure, operations, and governance, we're empowering organisations to innovate with confidence while maintaining complete control over their digital assets.”
Customers across regulated sectors such as healthcare, financial services, defense, energy, and telecoms, have already started using the service, including EWE AG, Medizinische Universität Lausitz – Carl Thiem (MUL-CT), and Sanoma Learning.
Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) has a dual strategy to strengthen Europe’s tech innovation and require non-European products to be adapted and integrated to ensure they can be used securely and independently, said Claudia Plattner, BSI’s President.
“The future of hyperscalers in Europe therefore lies in offerings such as the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. As Germany's cybersecurity authority, we are pleased to be able to contribute to its design.”
IBM Takes a Software-First Approach to Sovereignty
On the same day as Amazon doubled down on its EU data sovereignty provisions, IBM introduced IBM Sovereign Core, which it described as a purpose-built software platform for enterprises, governments and service providers to build, deploy and manage AI-ready sovereign environments under their own authority.
Built on Red Hat’s open source foundation, the software is intended to give organizations direct operational control over infrastructure, identity, encryption keys, compliance evidence, and AI inference within jurisdictions they choose.
Priya Srinivasan, General Manager, IBM Software Products, noted:
“Businesses are facing growing pressure to innovate while meeting tightening regulatory requirements and recognizing the importance of controlling how sensitive data and AI workloads are accessed and operated.”
"This shift is creating an urgent need for sovereign solutions that deliver AI-ready environments…combining openness, compliance, and operational autonomy to meet the demands of the AI era, without the need to sacrifice sovereignty requirements."
IBM cited a Gartner prediction that more than 75 percent of enterprises will have a digital sovereignty strategy by 2030, often centered on sovereign cloud approaches.
