Latest news with #sovereigncloud
Tahawul Tech
04-06-2025
- Business
- Tahawul Tech
public sector enterprises Archives
The company recently outlined how their agile product portfolio is designed to help public sector enterprise navigate and circumvent issues they face when migrating to public sovereign cloud models, during an exclusive roundtable.
TechCrunch
03-06-2025
- Business
- TechCrunch
AWS establishes new German corporate presence to advance European sovereign cloud
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon's cloud computing division, is forming a new parent company and three subsidiaries in Germany as part of a sovereign cloud the company is launching in the European Union. AWS VP Kathrin Renz will serve as managing director of AWS' German corporate parent, which will also be led by EU-based 'government security and privacy official[s],' according to Amazon. The German company will oversee the aforementioned new sovereign cloud, the AWS European Sovereign Cloud, which is scheduled to launch by the end of 2025. 'Everything needed to operate the AWS European Sovereign Cloud is in the EU,' wrote AWS in a blog post. 'In addition to independent infrastructure, there will be zero operational control outside of EU borders; only AWS employees, residing in the EU, will control day-to-day operations, including access to data centers, technical support, and customer service for the AWS European Sovereign Cloud.' A growing number of tech giants and cloud providers, including Amazon rivals Microsoft and Google, offer European sovereign cloud, or data residency, programs. These help customers comply with European local privacy and data protection laws like the GDPR and Germany's Federal Data Protection Act. AWS announced in May 2024 that it would invest €7.8 billion (roughly $8.8 billion) to build the AWS European Sovereign Cloud in Germany through 2040, with the first cloud 'region' to go live in the State of Brandenburg. The AWS European Sovereign Cloud will feature infrastructure located within the EU and operated independently from AWS' existing cloud computing regions, according to Amazon. Customers using it will be able to keep their data and metadata — including the configurations they use to run AWS — in the EU to comply with applicable laws and regulations, Amazon says. In addition to the new corporate presence in Germany, AWS says that it's establishing an advisory board made up of EU citizens and a dedicated European security operations center. '[W]e've designed the AWS European Sovereign Cloud to address European digital sovereignty requirements while maintaining the services portfolio, security, reliability, and performance that customers expect from AWS,' Renz said in a statement. 'Our investment in the AWS European Sovereign Cloud reinforces our commitment to Europe's digital future.' Techcrunch event Save now through June 4 for TechCrunch Sessions: AI Save $300 on your ticket to TC Sessions: AI—and get 50% off a second. Hear from leaders at OpenAI, Anthropic, Khosla Ventures, and more during a full day of expert insights, hands-on workshops, and high-impact networking. These low-rate deals disappear when the doors open on June 5. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you've built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | REGISTER NOW Amazon has found itself in the crosshairs of European regulators before for failing to comply with EU competition and data privacy rules. In 2021, Luxembourg's data watchdog slapped Amazon with a then-record €746 million (around $849 million) fine for allegedly processing user data for targeted advertising without seeking people's consent. And in 2022, AWS settled an EU antitrust probe into how it allegedly abused rivals' sales data to unfairly favor its own products.
Tahawul Tech
29-05-2025
- Business
- Tahawul Tech
Microsoft and Core42 delve into the transformative power of sovereign public clouds
Microsoft and Core42, a G42 company specialising in sovereign cloud, AI infrastructure, and digital services, recently released a comprehensive whitepaper titled 'Balancing Innovation and Compliance in the AI Era: Core42 Sovereign Public Cloud Leveraging Microsoft Azure'. This whitepaper delves into the transformative role of sovereign public cloud solutions in shaping the UAE's digital future, providing strategic insights and best practices for technology leaders to effectively adopt and deploy these solutions. Sovereign public clouds are crucial for several reasons: data sovereignty compliance ensures that data is stored, processed, and managed within a specific country or region, adhering to local laws and regulations, which is particularly crucial for sensitive information such as personally identifiable information (PII), intellectual property, and financial data. Sovereign clouds enhance security and privacy by implementing advanced measures like strict access controls and encryption, safeguarding data against unauthorized access, especially from foreign entities. They provide organisations greater operational control, enabling them to comply with legal and regulatory requirements while managing access to their data. Additionally, sovereign clouds support national interests by bolstering local digital infrastructure, fostering innovation, and reducing reliance on foreign providers. They also maintain scalability and cost efficiency, delivering the benefits of public cloud services while ensuring strict adherence to local regulations. A central insight from the whitepaper is that modern sovereign-enabled public clouds eliminate the long-standing trade-off between innovation and regulation. The paper features real-world use cases from the UAE, including AI-powered fraud detection in financial services, predictive diagnostics in healthcare, citizen data protection in government, and real-time analytics in energy. These examples illustrate how sovereign infrastructure can unlock transformative value while maintaining full regulatory alignment. By adopting a sovereign cloud model, companies in the UAE can embrace digital transformation with confidence, aligning technological progress with national priorities. The whitepaper also explores how the UAE is heavily investing in AI and the cloud to drive its digital future, with initiatives such as Abu Dhabi's strategy to become the world's first fully AI-native government by 2027. The UAE's sovereignty-first digital economy vision is being realised through such foundational infrastructure. By embedding data governance, compliance, and national security at the heart of digital transformation, the UAE is setting a global benchmark for AI-era leadership. The paper further highlights that global spending on sovereign cloud solutions is projected to nearly double from $133 billion in 2024 to $259 billion by 2027, emphasizing the urgency for governments and industries globally to integrate digital sovereignty into their core technology strategies. Sherif Tawfik, Chief Partnership Officer – AI & Cloud for Sovereignty, Microsoft reiterated Microsoft's unwavering commitment to supporting the UAE's ambitious vision of becoming a global leader in digital transformation. 'The Core42 Sovereign Public Cloud, powered by Microsoft Azure, exemplifies our dedication to providing secure, compliant, and innovative cloud solutions that meet the unique needs of regulated industries in the UAE. By leveraging Microsoft Azure, we are providing a robust, secure, and compliant cloud infrastructure that empowers UAE organisations to harness the full potential of AI and cloud capabilities to innovate and accelerate their digital transformation journey while ensuring data sovereignty and regulatory compliance'. Adrian Hobbs, Chief Technology Officer, Core42, highlighted the significance of the partnership between Core42 and Microsoft as a testament to their shared commitment to driving digital innovation while ensuring compliance with local regulations. 'The Core42 Sovereign Public Cloud, powered by Microsoft Azure, which leverages our sovereign control platform, Insight, is designed to meet the unique needs of regulated industries. This initiative aims to enable businesses to achieve their digital ambitions securely and in compliance with regulatory requirements. Our collaboration with Microsoft ensures that we provide a cloud environment that fosters innovation while upholding the highest standards of data sovereignty and regulatory compliance. We are proud to contribute to the national journeys towards becoming global technology leaders'. The partnership between Microsoft and Core42 has been pivotal in driving digital innovation and transformation across the UAE. Recently, the Abu Dhabi Government announced a landmark agreement with Microsoft and Core42 to implement a sovereign cloud system that will enhance efficiency and boost innovation in government services. This multi-year agreement aims to create a unified, high-performance sovereign cloud computing environment capable of processing over 11 million daily digital interactions between Abu Dhabi Government entities, citizens, residents, and businesses. The collaboration is a testament to the shared commitment of Microsoft and Core42 to drive digital innovation while ensuring compliance with local regulations. The Core42 Sovereign Public Cloud, powered by Microsoft Azure, which leverages the Core42 sovereign controls platform 'Insight', exemplifies this dedication by providing secure, compliant, and innovative cloud solutions tailored to the unique needs of regulated industries in the UAE. For more detailed insights on sovereign enabled public clouds, read the white paper: Image Credit: Microsoft & Core42
Arabian Business
28-05-2025
- Business
- Arabian Business
HCLTech's 2025 Cloud Report: Why multicloud, GenAI and modernisation are no longer optional
In today's digital-first world, cloud computing has moved beyond being just a strategic tool – it has become the very infrastructure on which future-ready businesses are built. That's the overarching message of HCLTech's latest global survey report, Cloud Evolution: The Mandate to Modernize. By gathering insights from over 500 senior IT and business decision-makers across key global markets, the study sheds light on how enterprise cloud strategies are maturing, adapting and accelerating to meet the demands of a constantly evolving technological and economic environment. This isn't just another industry whitepaper. It is a timely and nuanced exploration of how enterprises are moving from merely adopting the cloud to actively reengineering their entire digital architecture around it. At the heart of this evolution is a potent combination: multicloud strategies, hybrid infrastructure, application modernisation and the rapid emergence of Generative AI (GenAI). Together, they are reshaping how organisations compete, operate and innovate – not in isolated efforts but through interconnected and systemic transformation. For executives in the Middle East, this convergence of forces presents both a significant opportunity and a clear imperative. As the region pushes forward with national digital transformation agendas and sovereign cloud frameworks, the findings from this report offer a strategic roadmap to modernisation that is deeply relevant and immediately actionable. It is not just about adopting cloud; it is about integrating it as a central enabler of long-term competitiveness. From accidental to intentional The modern cloud landscape is complex, distributed and strategic. The report highlights that 87 per cent of enterprises are now engaging more than one cloud provider, with an average of three providers typically forming the core of their infrastructure. Crucially, this shift is no longer accidental. Organisations are becoming 2.2x more likely to implement a deliberate multicloud strategy than they were just three years ago. This approach allows businesses to tap into the unique strengths of different cloud ecosystems – from compliance-ready sovereign clouds to AI-optimised services and scalable storage networks. By spreading workloads across providers, they mitigate vendor lock-in, optimise cost structures, and bolster resilience in the face of outages or performance limitations. Multicloud is no longer a trend; it's the new normal. It gives enterprises a stronger foundation for innovation, enabling them to adopt best-of-breed services for each use case. And as businesses seek greater interoperability and ecosystem flexibility, multicloud becomes a strategic asset rather than a risk. Siki Giunta, Executive Vice President and Head of HCLTech's Cloud Native Centre of Excellence, puts it bluntly: 'Cloud is not just a technology investment; it is fundamental to how businesses modernise.' For the Gulf region, where regulated sectors like banking and government are exploring cloud with renewed urgency, this strategic diversification is critical to balancing innovation with compliance. As digitalisation becomes the backbone of economic diversification in countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, multicloud is poised to support national ambitions as much as corporate ones. GenAI is driving cloud innovation – and hybrid demand Artificial intelligence is no longer a futuristic side project. According to the report, 98 per cent of enterprises are already exploring custom GenAI solutions trained on their own proprietary data. These are not off-the-shelf models; they are deeply tailored to business-specific needs – from financial risk analysis to automated legal document review to intelligent retail forecasting. However, the infrastructure story beneath GenAI is just as important. With 55 per cent of relevant data still hosted on-premises, cloud-only models fall short. Instead, a hybrid cloud model is fast becoming the dominant strategy for deploying GenAI at scale. This approach blends the scalability of public cloud with the control and compliance advantages of on-prem and edge deployments. GenAI demands robust compute power, fast data pipelines, and stringent governance protocols. That's why hybrid is winning. It offers enterprises the ability to run models closer to the data, reduce latency, and comply with data sovereignty requirements – all while scaling rapidly when needed. In short, GenAI is not just fuelling cloud adoption; it is reshaping how and where cloud infrastructure needs to operate. For Middle East organisations, this insight is crucial as they plan large-scale AI initiatives while navigating stringent data localisation policies. As regional governments roll out AI strategies and invest in talent development, cloud-native AI infrastructure will become a critical enabler of competitiveness. Lift and shift is out, refactor is in The era of simply rehosting legacy applications in the cloud is coming to a close. The HCLTech report finds that 80 per cent of enterprises now believe cloud value is only unlocked when applications are modernised – not just migrated. In fact, 73 per cent of respondents actively refactored applications as part of their cloud migration strategy, signalling a decisive move toward cloud-native thinking. Modernisation involves more than code updates. It includes decomposing monolithic systems into microservices, embracing containerisation, adopting DevSecOps principles, and investing in platform engineering that enables self-service development environments. Application modernisation unlocks not only performance improvements but also cultural transformation. Teams move faster, release more reliably, and build applications that scale seamlessly across environments. Platform engineering supports this shift by providing internal developers with tools, templates, and security frameworks that accelerate innovation without sacrificing control. This is particularly urgent in the Gulf, where industries from real estate to retail are digitising at speed. Without modernising their core applications, even the most ambitious cloud strategies risk delivering disappointing returns on investment. In sectors like logistics, finance and energy, where operational excellence is non-negotiable, the cloud-native advantage will determine who leads and who lags. Cloud, complexity and the role of third-party experts Enterprise cloud journeys are increasingly sophisticated – and increasingly difficult to manage in-house. The report reveals that 83 per cent of organisations working with third-party consultants on GenAI and multicloud reported measurable gains in application performance, cost-efficiency and time to deployment. Even more impressively, such partnerships made these companies 69 per cent more likely to have multiple GenAI use cases in production. As cloud and AI evolve, the internal capabilities of IT teams must evolve with them. But talent shortages, time constraints and fast-moving architectures often stand in the way. This is where consultancies, integrators and specialised partners become accelerators, not just supporters. External partners bring pattern recognition. They've seen what works across industries, scaled similar architectures, and can bring reusable assets to bear. This matters when timelines are short and competitive pressure is intense. From designing hybrid-ready architectures to implementing GenAI governance frameworks, third parties can unlock speed and reduce risk. In the Middle East, where both national cloud adoption targets and private-sector digital ambitions are surging, trusted partners can offer the scale, speed and security organisations need to execute effectively. The right partner strategy can convert cloud chaos into cloud clarity – and transform transformation into results. Five takeaways for Middle East leaders Based on HCLTech's research, here are five immediate actions CIOs and CTOs in the region should consider: Design a hybrid-first architecture: Accept that certain sensitive workloads must remain on-prem or in sovereign environments. Build flexibility around this constraint. Modernise your apps, not just your infrastructure: Rehosting without refactoring is a short-term solution. Invest in platforms, SREs, and microservices architectures. Integrate GenAI into your cloud roadmap now: Treat AI not as a bolt-on feature but as a core workload that requires custom infrastructure and data alignment. Make multicloud intentional: Don't let shadow IT or mergers dictate your cloud estate. Develop clear governance and procurement strategies. Partner smart, not just often: Third-party experts offer competitive advantage – if chosen carefully. Look for partners with regional experience, technical depth and business acumen. By following these steps, enterprises can future-proof their operations, avoid vendor dependence, and move faster in high-stakes markets. The stakes are high, but so is the upside. The future Cloud evolution is no longer about transformation. It's about survival. HCLTech's report doesn't just reflect a shift in technology adoption – it captures a broader realignment of how organisations think about innovation, resilience and agility. In the next five years, the winners won't be defined by how quickly they migrated to the cloud, but by how effectively they modernised on it. In a region like the Middle East, where vision-led development meets investor-led performance, the stakes could not be higher. Cloud is no longer a platform. It's the foundation. And as GenAI becomes embedded in daily business, platform engineering matures, and multicloud environments become default, the future will belong to those who build wisely, scale securely and partner smartly.
Khaleej Times
27-05-2025
- Business
- Khaleej Times
How can organisations balance innovation and compliance in the age of AI?
Sovereign public clouds are crucial for several reasons: data sovereignty compliance ensures that data is stored, processed, and managed within a specific country or region, adhering to local laws and regulations, which is particularly crucial for sensitive information such as personally identifiable information (PII), intellectual property, and financial data. Microsoft and Core42, a G42 company specializing in sovereign cloud, AI infrastructure, and digital services, released a comprehensive whitepaper titled 'Balancing Innovation and Compliance in the AI Era: Core42 Sovereign Public Cloud Leveraging Microsoft Azure'. This whitepaper delves into the transformative role of sovereign public cloud solutions in shaping the UAE's digital future, providing strategic insights and best practices for technology leaders to effectively adopt and deploy these solutions. Sovereign clouds enhance security and privacy by implementing advanced measures like strict access controls and encryption, safeguarding data against unauthorized access, especially from foreign entities. They provide organizations greater operational control, enabling them to comply with legal and regulatory requirements while managing access to their data. Additionally, sovereign clouds support national interests by bolstering local digital infrastructure, fostering innovation, and reducing reliance on foreign providers. They also maintain scalability and cost efficiency, delivering the benefits of public cloud services while ensuring strict adherence to local regulations. By adopting a sovereign cloud model, companies in the UAE can embrace digital transformation with confidence, aligning technological progress with national priorities. The whitepaper also explores how the UAE is heavily investing in AI and the cloud to drive its digital future, with initiatives such as Abu Dhabi's strategy to become the world's first fully AI-native government by 2027. The UAE's sovereignty-first digital economy vision is being realized through such foundational infrastructure. By embedding data governance, compliance, and national security at the heart of digital transformation, the UAE is setting a global benchmark for AI-era leadership. A central insight from the whitepaper is that modern sovereign-enabled public clouds eliminate the long-standing trade-off between innovation and regulation. The paper features real-world use cases from the UAE, including AI-powered fraud detection in financial services, predictive diagnostics in healthcare, citizen data protection in government, and real-time analytics in energy. These examples illustrate how sovereign infrastructure can unlock transformative value while maintaining full regulatory alignment. The paper further highlights that global spending on sovereign cloud solutions is projectedto nearly double from $133 billion in 2024 to $259 billion by 2027, emphasizing the urgency for governments and industries globally to integrate digital sovereignty into their core technology strategies. Sherif Tawfik, Chief Partnership Officer – AI & Cloud for Sovereignty, Microsoft, said: 'The Core42 Sovereign Public Cloud, powered by Microsoft Azure, exemplifies our dedication to providing secure, compliant, and innovative cloud solutions that meet the unique needs of regulated industries in the UAE. By leveraging Microsoft Azure, we are providing a robust, secure, and compliant cloud infrastructure that empowers UAE organizations to harness the full potential of AI and cloud capabilities to innovate and accelerate their digital transformation journey while ensuring data sovereignty and regulatory compliance.' Adrian Hobbs, Chief Technology Officer, Core42,said: 'The Core42 Sovereign Public Cloud, powered by Microsoft Azure, which leverages our sovereign control platform, Insight, is designed to meet the unique needs of regulated industries. This initiative aims to enable businesses to achieve their digital ambitions securely and in compliance with regulatory requirements. Our collaboration with Microsoft ensures that we provide a cloud environment that fosters innovation while upholding the highest standards of data sovereignty and regulatory compliance. We are proud to contribute to the national journeys towards becoming global technology leaders.' The partnership between Microsoft and Core42 has been pivotal in driving digital innovation and transformation across the UAE. Recently, the Abu Dhabi Government announced a landmark agreement with Microsoft and Core42 to implement a sovereign cloud system that will enhance efficiency and boost innovation in government services. This multi-year agreement aims to create a unified, high-performance sovereign cloud computing environment capable of processing over 11 million daily digital interactions between Abu Dhabi Government entities, citizens, residents, and businesses.
