PARIS, June 16, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - American tech giant Microsoft said Monday it 
was offering new cloud-computing products for European governments and 
organisations keen to control their data and ensure compliance with strict EU 
rules. 

Microsoft launched the offering in a statement strewn with the words 
"sovereign" and "sovereignty", reflecting anxiety among political and tech 
leaders outside the US about American dominance.

The biggest change Microsoft announced was that only staff based in the EU 
will be able to control remote access to cloud computing systems -- rented 
remote hardware for storing and processing data -- located in the bloc.

Its "Sovereign Public Cloud" product "ensures customer data stays in Europe, 
under European Law, with operations and access controlled by European 
personnel, and encryption is under full control of customers," the company 
said.

"All remote access by Microsoft engineers to the systems that store and 
process your data in Europe is approved and monitored by European resident 
personnel in real-time and will be logged in a tamper-evident ledger," it 
added.

Microsoft also said that clients would be able to operate local, walled-off 
versions of its office software like Exchange and Sharepoint in their own 
data centres, offering them "full control on security, compliance, and 
governance".

The option is "designed for governments, critical industries, and regulated 
sectors that need to meet the highest standards of data residency, 
operational autonomy, and disconnected access," Microsoft added.

The Redmond-based company said its new products would be available by the end 
of the year.

Microsoft's push to offer more "sovereign" options follows up on an April 
promise to expand data centres in 16 European countries, contribute to 
building an artificial intelligence "ecosystem" on the continent and work 
with the region's cloud operators.

American companies account for between 70 and 80 percent of the European 
cloud-computing market.

But France in particular has been pushing to build up European capabilities 
to keep data out of reach of the US government.

American law includes provisions under which Washington can compel private 
companies to grant access to data stored on their servers -- even outside US 
territory.

Schleswig-Holstein, one of Germany's 16 states, said Thursday that it would 
eliminate Microsoft software from its systems starting from later this year.