Microsoft's candid admission that it “cannot guarantee” European customer data will never be handed to U.S. authorities has turned a long‑standing corporate argument about cloud sovereignty into a live-policy moment — and prompted sharp public ripostes from regional players such as OVHcloud’s...
byok
cloud act
cloud sovereignty
cross-border data
cryptographic keys
customer managed keys
data governance
data localization
data residency
datasovereignty
eu data boundary
gdpr
microsoft eu data
operational sovereignty
ovhcloud
privacy and security
sovereign cloud
technical sovereignty
vendor lock-in
Broadcom’s broadside from the VMware Explore stage in Las Vegas was blunt: enterprises should stop reflexively running to the public cloud and instead bring AI and modern apps back on-premises with VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF).
Background
Broadcom completed its acquisition of VMware in late...
Atturra’s announcement that it has secured the Microsoft Private Cloud Solution Partner designation marks a significant addition to its already deep Microsoft credentials and positions the ASX‑listed services firm at the forefront of sovereign, hybrid and on‑premises Microsoft delivery in...
atturra
australia
azure arc
azure stack hci
cloud governance
cloud security
cybersecurity
data residency
datasovereignty
defence
education
government
gpu as a service
hybrid cloud
in-country infrastructure
microsoft
private cloud
solution partner
sovereign cloud
windows server
Microsoft’s president doubled down on a promise to investigate the company’s ties to Israel because a cascade of investigative reporting, a forceful United Nations inquiry, escalating employee activism, investor pressure and fresh allegations about large-scale use of Microsoft Azure by Israeli...
azure cloud
cloud contracts
cloud governance
corporate governance
data privacy
datasovereignty
dual-use technology
employee activism
esg
human rights compliance
independent audit
investigations
investor activism
israel ties
microsoft
project nimbus
sovereign cloud
transparency
un human rights council
unit 8200
Atturra’s rise through Microsoft’s partner ranks has been rapid and highly visible, with multiple outlets reporting that the Australian integrator has secured a significant new recognition in the hybrid and private cloud space — a development that, if fully verified, would strengthen its...
atturra
australia
azure arc
azure stack hci
cloud governance
cloud security
cloud services
cybersecurity
data residency
datasovereignty
defence
education
government
gpu as a service
gpu compute
hybrid cloud
in-country infrastructure
microsoft
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private cloud
private cloud solutions partner
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solution partner
solutions partner
sovereign cloud
windows server
windows server hybrid
Microsoft’s Redmond campus erupted into a high-stakes showdown this month as employee-led protesters occupied public spaces, splashed paint on the company sign, and drew law-enforcement intervention — all over one fundamental allegation: that Microsoft Azure has been used at scale by the Israeli...
ai policy
azure ai
cloud contracts
cloud governance
covington burling
datasovereignty
dual-use technology
employee activism
ethics in tech
external audit
human rights due diligence
microsoft azure
microsoft israel gaza
no azure for apartheid
privacy
sovereign cloud
surveillance ethics
transparency
unit 8200
A recent hands‑on experiment that tried to replace Microsoft Copilot’s web‑page summarization with a fully local stack — Ollama running local models and the Page Assist browser sidebar — ended with a clear, practical verdict: Copilot still delivers the faster, more polished experience for...
ai experiment
ai in browser
copilot
datasovereignty
edge
embeddings
gpt oss
hybrid workflows
local llm
model latency
nomic embed text
ollama
open source models
page assist
privacy
rag
web summarization
windows
windows central
Microsoft has opened an externally supervised review after investigative reporting alleged that Israel’s intelligence services used a bespoke environment running on Microsoft Azure to ingest, store and analyse very large volumes of intercepted Palestinian communications — a development that...
acceptable use
ai ethics
azure
cloud governance
cloud security
datasovereignty
dual-use technology
external review
gaza
governance
human rights
independent audits
israel
microsoft
national security
regulation
responsible ai
surveillance
Microsoft has opened an “urgent” external review after investigative reporting alleged that Israel’s Unit 8200 used a bespoke environment on Microsoft Azure to ingest, store and analyse vast volumes of intercepted Palestinian communications — claims that raise immediate questions about cloud...
ai governance
audit rights
cloud governance
cloud security
covington burling
data privacy
datasovereignty
european data centers
external review
investigative journalism
israel imod
mass surveillance
microsoft azure
privacy rights
responsible ai
speech-to-text
transparency
unit 8200
Microsoft has opened a formal inquiry after fresh reports allege that Israel’s elite intelligence unit used Microsoft Azure to store and analyse vast volumes of intercepted Palestinian communications, raising urgent questions about cloud governance, corporate responsibility, and the role of big...
ai ethics
cloud contracts
cloud governance
cloud security
compliance
corporate responsibility
data centers europe
datasovereignty
external review
government contracting
human rights
investigative reporting
ireland data center
israel gaza conflict
microsoft azure
netherlands data center
surveillance
transparency
unit 8200
whistleblower
The UK government’s five‑year Memorandum of Understanding with Microsoft — the Strategic Partnership Arrangement 2024 (SPA24) — commits public bodies to a scale of procurement that the Crown Commercial Service expects will amount to roughly £9 billion over the life of the deal, and that...
ai in government
ccs
cloud services
copilot
datasovereignty
digital transformation
hybrid cloud
it procurement reform
microsoft
open source
open source in government
open source migration
public sector it
security governance
spa24
spending transparency
tco
total cost of ownership
uk government
vendor lock-in
q.beyond has quietly moved from being a competent German IT service provider to one of the more visible European players shaping how small and mid-sized enterprises adopt generative AI — launching a local, sovereign AI platform, shipping a targeted Copilot plugin, and securing top-tier...
ai governance
ai interoperability
copilot jumpstart
data residency
datasovereignty
erp crm integration
european ai
microsoft copilot
onephonebook agent
private cloud ai
private enterprise ai
q.beyond
sap joule
smes ai adoption
sovereign ai
Google Cloud’s strong showing in a recent South Africa–focused survey has renewed the debate about where enterprise cloud momentum is actually flowing, but the headline — that Google Cloud “beats” Azure and AWS — needs careful qualification and context before it’s treated as a global verdict...
Microsoft’s cloud business is at the center of a fraught ethical, legal and commercial storm after new reporting tied Azure to intelligence workloads used by Israel’s military, forcing a reckoning over what cloud providers can — and should — do when sovereign customers appear to repurpose...
cloud ethics
cloud governance
corporate liability
datasovereignty
employee activism
export controls
gdpr
hrdd
human rights due diligence
investor activism
israel gaza
microsoft azure
project nimbus
responsible ai
surveillance
unit 8200
Sure’s Channel Islands arm has begun offering Microsoft’s Azure Stack Hub as a managed, on‑island hybrid‑cloud service, positioning a locally hosted, Azure‑consistent platform behind 24/7 island support and ISO‑backed controls for customers that must keep data within Channel Islands...
Sure’s Channel Islands data-centre arm has added Microsoft’s Azure Stack Hub to its managed portfolio, giving local organisations the ability to run Azure-consistent infrastructure-as-a-service workloads inside on-island facilities while keeping data, compliance controls and support physically...
azure compatibility
azure parity
azure stack hub
capacity planning
channel islands
cloud licensing
connected mode
data governance
data residency
data security
datasovereignty
disaster recovery
disconnected mode
expressroute
hybrid cloud
iso 22301
iso 27001
iso certifications
licensing models
local support
managed cloud
managed service
offshore cloud services
on island support
on-island data centre
paas limitations
procurement checklist
procurement risk
proof of concept
regulatory compliance
resiliency reserve
vendor coordination
vendor lock-in risk
OpenAI’s decision to run ChatGPT and its API on Google Cloud — alongside Microsoft Azure, CoreWeave, and Oracle — marks a decisive shift from single-provider reliance to a multi-cloud infrastructure designed to relieve crushing compute demand, reduce vendor risk, and squeeze performance and cost...
ai infrastructure
ai tradeoffs
azure
chatgpt
cloud computing
cloud vendor risk
coreweave
data governance
datasovereignty
enterprise ai
google cloud
gpu
infrastructure strategy
model training
multi-cloud
openai
oracle
regional latency
subprocessor
tpu
Arkane Studios union members have joined a high-profile call for Microsoft to sever ties with the Israeli military, saying the parent company’s cloud and AI services “have no place being accomplice of a genocide,” and aligning their demands with the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS)...
ai ethics
algorithmic accountability
arkane union
azure
bds movement
cloud computing
contractor transparency
datasovereignty
dual-use technology
gaza conflict
human rights
investigative journalism
israel
microsoft
petabyte data
sovereign cloud
targeting systems
tech worker activism
xbox
Microsoft’s Azure cloud has become the focal point of a landmark investigation that alleges Israel’s elite signals-intelligence unit, Unit 8200, migrated massive volumes of intercepted Palestinian communications into a bespoke, segregated Azure environment—creating an AI-assisted, cloud-backed...
ai governance
ai surveillance
azure cloud
cloud governance
cloud security
cybersecurity risk
data retention
datasovereignty
ethics in ai
export controls
government contracting
human rights
industry accountability
israeli military surveillance
microsoft azure
privacy rights
surveillance ethics
tech policy
unit 8200
whistleblowing
NTT DATA’s new global business unit for Microsoft Cloud marks a clear and ambitious step to turn enterprise AI promise into large-scale production deployments, pairing NTT DATA’s consulting heft with Microsoft’s Azure AI Foundry, Azure AI Agent Service and Copilot capabilities to deliver Agentic...
agent ops
agentic ai
ai governance
azure ai agent service
azure ai foundry
azure copilot
cloud modernization
copilot
datasovereignty
enterprise ai
industry accelerators
microsoft cloud
multi-agent ai
ntt data
regulated industries
sovereign cloud
systems integrator