The APAC sovereign cloud surge: How will it impact your business?

Microsoft sees governments as key drivers of this trend. In a blog post, the company said that governments want the power and scalability of the public cloud but with the control and transparency that sovereignty models promise.

“Governments are obligated to meet specific requirements for varying data classifications including data governance, security controls, the privacy of citizens, data residency, sovereign protections, and compliant operations following legal regulations like the GDPR [in the case of Europe],” Microsoft said.

Who’s going sovereign first?

Don’t expect every industry to take the leap at once. Heavily regulated sectors like government, healthcare, and utilities are the early adopters. Data residency laws and a desire to future-proof their operations in an uncertain regulatory landscape are pushing them towards sovereign solutions.

“The strongest interest we are seeing are in highly regulated sectors, particularly the public sector but also the adjacent industries that are impacted by sovereignty style policies, such as utilities and healthcare who are seeking to become future-ready for anticipated changes to regulations and government policies, such as data residency requirements,” Francis said.

About 48% of public sector organizations in APAC are planning to include cloud sovereignty as part of their cloud strategy in the next 12 months, said Edouard Laroche-Joubert, APAC head of Cloud Centre of Excellence at Capgemini. The move towards cloud sovereignty is driven by the need to secure sensitive data, comply with regulations, and protect organizations against cyber threats.

“Potential use cases in the public sector include smart cities services which connect data infrastructure in areas such as mobility, health, administration, energy, and education,” Laroche-Joubert said. “In addition, chatbots can be used to provide citizens with 24/7 digital assistance for digital public administration.”