Toku Moves CX Platform to Core42 Sovereign-Enabled Azure Cloud in UAE

What was announced​

Toku's UAE subsidiary, Toku Technology L.L.C., has an agreement with Core42, a G42 company, to host the Toku platform. The agreement was marked at a signing ceremony in Abu Dhabi on 2 October 2026, and the public announcement came on 8 October. Toku says onboarding has begun.

The target customers are UAE public-sector bodies and regulated enterprises. Toku says they increasingly need customer interactions, call recordings and platform data to stay in-country and under local jurisdiction. In Toku's description, the environment combines Azure infrastructure deployed in the UAE with Core42 sovereign controls, governance mechanisms, compliance monitoring and sovereign landing zone architectures. Core42's Insight platform provides centralised oversight.

Toku CEO Thomas Laboulle said the aim is to let public-sector and regulated customers adopt the platform "without compromising on where their data sits." Core42's Ahmed Labib said government contact centres handle large volumes of personal data. He described the cloud as a practical, in-country route for modernising citizen services.

What "sovereign enabled" means in practice​

This is not a separate Microsoft-run cloud. Core42's own product material describes data hosted in the UAE through Azure regional infrastructure, strengthened by Core42 sovereign controls via Insight application compliance monitoring. Core42 also says customers get access to the full suite of Microsoft Azure services.

Insight is the control layer. Core42 says its policy library maps the UAE National Cloud Security Policy, Azure Confidential Compute and national frameworks to more than 200 technical controls. It also says real-time dashboards show compliance posture, 30-day patterns and non-compliant control flags. These are vendor descriptions, not independent audit findings.

Core42 also says partners can design solutions around a particular customer's requirements and the relevant workload classification. In other words, the controls depend on the type of data involved. Toku's announcement does not say which data classes it will host.

The Abu Dhabi background​

The platform behind this deal grew out of a government programme. On 18 March 2025, Abu Dhabi's Department of Government Enablement announced a multi-year agreement with Microsoft and Core42. Its goal was a sovereign cloud system for government services. The environment was meant to handle over 11 million daily digital interactions between government entities, citizens, residents and businesses.

Core42 launched a partner programme this week. It says its environment currently supports more than 47 Abu Dhabi government entities. Through the Technology Partner track, ISVs and startups can bring their solutions to Core42 Sovereign Enabled Public Cloud and build with Azure services. Toku's deal fits that model of independent software vendors hosting on a Core42-managed Azure environment.

Toku's Singapore track record and expansion​

Toku says it delivered the first large-scale contact centre on Singapore's Government on Commercial Cloud, for the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS). It says the service covers the national taxpayer base, with AI transcription and summarisation supporting agents and supervisors. That claim comes from Toku and is not independently verified here. No performance figures or system details were given.

Toku also reports the following:

• Its Middle East coverage has grown from two markets to eight since December 2025.
• It set up a UAE subsidiary and announced an Arabic-language AI partnership with SESTEK in September 2026.
• It is participating in several public-sector tenders with regional partners.
• It describes an "infrastructure without boundaries" approach, with deployment across commercial cloud, government and sovereign clouds, private data centres or hybrid setups.

What the announcement does not say​

• It names no UAE customer.
• It reports no completed migration.
• It gives no commercial terms.
• It does not say any tender has been won.
• The Abu Dhabi government announcement does not establish a customer relationship between Toku and those entities.
• Hosting on a sovereign-enabled cloud does not by itself satisfy any organisation's legal obligations.

What IT teams should take from this​

For IT and compliance teams evaluating a SaaS vendor on a sovereign-enabled Azure environment, data residency is only one question. The following are my own suggested checks, not claims from Toku or Core42:

1. Confirm where recordings, transcripts and AI-generated summaries are stored and processed.
2. Ask how administrative access and oversight are governed.
3. Check whether the vendor's configuration matches your own data-classification scheme.
4. Ask whether any AI or analytics components run outside the in-country environment.

Bottom line​

Toku's move is an early example of a software vendor building on Azure through a local sovereign layer. It signals Toku's intent for the UAE public sector more than any proven result. The real test will be whether named government or regulated customers go live on it.