Microsoft Strengthens Sovereign Cloud with New Features and Belgian Datacenter

Microsoft continues to build on its sovereign cloud offering. Despite restrictions imposed by the US government, the company hopes to establish an attractive and secure solution in the market. The opening of a Belgian datacenter region is part of this effort.

Microsoft expands its Sovereign Cloud offering with new features that address European requirements around data location, compliance and control. The company announces improvements for both its public and private cloud environments, with emphasis on AI processing within the EU and local data management for Microsoft 365.

New locations, including the upcoming opening of the Azure datacenter in Belgium, should contribute to this. The Belgian site was already announced at the end of 2021. At the end of 2022, ITdaily followed up with a virtual tour.

The local availability of Azure is only part of the puzzle. Microsoft’s sovereign cloud (and that of other American companies) recently proved not to be so sovereign after all. Microsoft itself admitted that it cannot really guarantee that data from European customers stays in the EU, even when stored exclusively on an EU datacenter. Under the CLOUD Act in the US, the company is obligated to give authorities access to data, wherever in the world it may be stored.

Functionality Expansion

With new capabilities focused on sovereignty, Redmond is now trying to strengthen data independence outside the US. The following innovations are important:

• EU Data Boundary: AI data processing for European customers remains entirely within the European Union.
• Microsoft 365 Copilot: user interactions are now processed locally in fifteen countries. By the end of 2025, Australia, Japan and the United Kingdom will follow; in 2026, eleven more countries will be added, including Germany, Spain and the US.
• Sovereign Landing Zones: a renewed architecture for organizations that want to apply sovereign controls in Azure Public Cloud, with extensive policy and simplified implementation.
• Microsoft 365 Local: general availability of core applications such as Exchange, SharePoint and Skype for Business on Azure Local, with a fully isolated mode planned for 2026.
• Azure Local: scaling up to hundreds of servers, support for external SAN storage and the latest Nvidia GPUs for AI workloads.
• New partner specialization: introduction of the Digital Sovereignty Specialization within the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program, allowing partners to demonstrate their expertise around secure and compliant cloud solutions.

New Datacenter in Belgium

Microsoft simultaneously strengthens its European infrastructure and governance:

• A European management team with exclusively European members oversees datacenter operations according to EU legislation.
• New datacenters were opened in Austria and soon in Belgium. The location is expected to open this month.
• The European Security Program supports digital resilience through AI-driven cybersecurity initiatives.
• Investments in open-source projects and publication of AI Access Principles should promote responsible use and competitiveness in Europe.

Additionally, Microsoft is preparing extra features, such as Data Guardian for transparent control over data access in European clouds, and improved disaster recovery and change controls within Azure Local.