Microsoft Sovereign Cloud

Microsoft Sovereign Cloud is a portfolio of cloud services and deployment options for governments and regulated enterprises with requirements for data residency, access governance, and operational control. Formerly Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty, it supports Microsoft services through public-cloud, private-cloud, and national partner-operated environments. Organizations select the deployment model and controls appropriate to each workload.

Sovereign Public Cloud adds controls to existing Microsoft cloud regions, including customer-managed encryption keys, confidential computing to protect data during processing, and policy-based configuration baselines. Sovereign Landing Zones provide preconfigured Azure environments with policies for resource location, encryption, and security settings. European deployments also include capabilities for operational-access oversight and tamper-evident logging.

Sovereign Private Cloud uses Azure Local to run virtual machines, Kubernetes containers, and supported AI and productivity workloads in customer-controlled or partner-operated facilities. Deployments can connect to Azure for management or operate in disconnected environments. National Partner Clouds provide additional options under local operating arrangements. These models support applications such as sensitive-data processing, internal AI inference, and critical infrastructure operations; available services and controls depend on the deployment and geography.