Microsoft expands Sovereign Cloud security with governance, local productivity and AI

Microsoft expands Microsoft Sovereign Cloud with new disconnected and AI capabilities that help organizations run critical infrastructure, productivity services and large AI models inside sovereign boundaries while keeping governance and operational continuity across connected and disconnected environments.

Sovereign Private Cloud unifies Azure Local, Microsoft 365 Local and Foundry Local, bringing infrastructure, productivity and support for large AI models to any operational boundary. (Source: Microsoft)

“Customers can choose the right control posture for each workload, through a continuum of sovereign options protecting against fragmenting their architecture or increasing operational risk. Trust is built on confidence: confidence that data stays protected, controls are enforceable and operations can continue under real-world conditions,” Douglas Phillips, President and CTO, Microsoft Specialized Clouds, explained.

Azure governance without cloud connectivity

Organizations can run mission critical infrastructure with Azure governance and policy controls without a connection to the public cloud, supporting sovereign, classified and isolated environments where connectivity is limited or restricted.

Azure Local provides an on-premises foundation with consistent Azure governance and policy controls inside customer operated environments. With disconnected operations, management, policy enforcement and workload execution remain within the local environment so services continue when systems are isolated from external networks. Teams use familiar Azure tools and a consistent policy model to deploy and manage workloads locally without relying on continuous connection to public cloud services.

The platform supports deployments from smaller configurations to larger environments that handle data intensive and AI workloads. Organizations can start with what they need and expand over time while maintaining a consistent operating model within their sovereign boundary.

Disconnected environments require planning for limited external dependencies, restricted connectivity and continuous operations.

Productivity services inside the sovereign boundary

Core productivity workloads including Exchange Server, SharePoint Server and Skype for Business Server run inside the customer’s sovereign operational boundary on Azure Local without relying on the public cloud. Microsoft 365 Local disconnected brings these services into the private cloud environment, where they are supported through at least 2035 and managed alongside infrastructure and AI workloads.

Teams can communicate and collaborate within the same boundary that hosts infrastructure and AI services. Workloads operate under customer defined policies with control over data, access and compliance. Management and governance follow the Azure model, enabling consistent tools and processes across the environment without continuous cloud connectivity.

Extending sovereign environments with large model support

Organizations can bring large AI models into disconnected sovereign environments with Foundry Local. Running on customer owned hardware and infrastructure from partners such as NVIDIA, multimodal models operate within strict sovereign boundaries and support local inferencing without external connectivity.

Foundry Local extends Azure Local by supporting large scale models within the same environment that hosts infrastructure and productivity workloads. AI services follow the same governance and policy framework, keeping data, identities and operations within the customer’s private cloud. Microsoft provides support for deployment, updates and operational health, allowing organizations to scale inferencing over time while retaining control of their data and hardware.