What cloud sovereignty really means

In 2025, the close bonds between the US and Europe faltered, leading some European enterprises to question their continued use of cloud services provided by US hyperscalers (see Tariff tensions undermine trust in cloud hyperscalers). To address concerns about legal authority over workloads and data, several US cloud providers rolled out “sovereign public cloud” products aimed at ensuring data and operations remain within European borders. Concurrently, European cloud providers have been marketing themselves as geopolitically neutral alternatives.

However, the features of sovereign cloud offerings differ significantly among providers. Some seek to secure sovereignty through commitments to data residency, while others adopt organizational frameworks to minimize the risk of unauthorized access. These discrepancies pose challenges for businesses trying to discern which products truly fulfill their needs and which amount to little more than the clever marketing of standard cloud services.