15 January 2026 — Today Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced the general availability of AWS European Sovereign Cloud, a new, independently operated cloud for Europe located entirely within the EU and physically and logically isolated from other AWS regions. AWS European Sovereign Cloud offers a uniquely designed, fully featured sovereign cloud supported by strong technical controls, sovereignty guarantees and legal protections, built to meet the needs of European governments and enterprises handling sensitive data. AWS also revealed plans to expand the footprint of the AWS European Sovereign Cloud from Germany across the EU to meet strict isolation, in-country data residency and low-latency requirements. This expansion begins with new sovereign AWS Local Zones in Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal.
From day one, AWS’s global cloud and AI infrastructure has been designed with sovereignty in mind, giving customers full control over where their data resides and how it moves. This is backed by multiple technical and operational controls that deliver transparency and security, along with AWS’s global infrastructure that provides high resilience, strong security and availability. AWS is built to meet the demands of the world’s most security- and data-protection-conscious organizations, and most customers can meet their needs with one of the six existing AWS regions in the EU, which already include sovereignty capabilities. The AWS European Sovereign Cloud is intended to give customers an additional option to address strict EU sovereignty requirements without sacrificing AWS’s broad capabilities.
AWS European Sovereign Cloud, together with the extension of AWS Local Zones into three additional countries, provides organizations with more choices for running workloads in the cloud with maximum sovereignty and operational independence while retaining the wide range of AWS services they rely on to innovate and transform. AWS Local Zones are infrastructure locations that allow customers to keep data in a specific geography to meet residency requirements or run latency-sensitive applications. The AWS Local Zones announced today will be part of the AWS European Sovereign Cloud, extending sovereignty controls from the AWS region in Germany throughout the EU. Customers with stricter isolation or residency requirements will also be able to deploy AWS Dedicated Local Zones, AWS AI Factories or AWS Outposts at locations they select, including within their own on-premises data centers.
Operated, managed and secured in Europe
AWS European Sovereign Cloud combines layered technical and operational controls to provide a robust solution for customers who must meet strict digital sovereignty requirements while still benefiting from AWS Cloud and AI innovation. All resources required to operate the AWS European Sovereign Cloud are located in the EU: talent, infrastructure and leadership. There is no operational control outside EU borders. Key features include:
- European operational autonomy: The AWS European Sovereign Cloud is physically and logically isolated from other AWS regions. It is operated exclusively by EU residents, has no critical dependencies on infrastructure outside the EU, and its design enables continued operation indefinitely even in the event of communications disruptions with the rest of the world. To support continuity in extreme circumstances, authorized AWS employees who are EU residents may, in exceptional cases, have independent access to a copy of the source code necessary to maintain services within the AWS European Sovereign Cloud.
- Complete data residency: The AWS European Sovereign Cloud gives customers full control over where their data is stored. Customers can choose to store all metadata they create (such as roles, permissions, resource tags and configurations) entirely within the EU, including sovereign identity and access management (IAM), billing and usage metering systems.
- Leading technical and compliance controls: Security is fundamental to digital sovereignty. Like other AWS regions, the AWS European Sovereign Cloud runs on the AWS Nitro System, which provides industry-leading physical and logical security boundaries to enforce access controls so that no one, including AWS staff, can access customer data running on Amazon EC2. AWS also offers advanced encryption, key management services and hardware security modules that customers can use to protect their content further; encrypted content remains unusable without the appropriate decryption keys. AWS has introduced the AWS European Sovereign Cloud: Sovereignty Reference Framework (ESC-SRF), an independently validated framework to help customers meet sovereignty requirements. Customers may use the third-party validated ESC-SRF audit report to demonstrate clear, enforceable sovereignty guarantees.
- European governance: AWS has established a dedicated European governance structure with a new parent company and three local subsidiaries formed in Germany, led by EU citizens who are subject to European laws and required to act in the best interest of the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. This governance includes an advisory board that will provide expertise and accountability on sovereignty matters, composed of three Amazon employees and two independent board members, all European citizens and residents.
AWS also announced leadership and advisory appointments for the new offering. Stefan Hoechbauer, Vice President of AWS Global Sales Germany and Central Europe, has been named CEO of AWS European Sovereign Cloud. He will work closely with Stéphane Israël, who will lead AWS European Sovereign Cloud operations and management. AWS additionally named five advisory board members: three Amazon employees — Stéphane Ducable, Vice President for EMEA Public Policy at AWS; Ian McGarry, Head of Amazon CloudWatch; and Barbara Scarafia, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for Europe at Amazon — plus two independent board members, General (ret.) Philippe Lavigne and Sinéad McSweeney. General Lavigne previously served as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, and McSweeney serves on multiple boards and formerly held the role of Vice President for Public Policy at Twitter.
Investing in European innovation and digital capacity
- The AWS European Sovereign Cloud launched its first AWS region in Brandenburg, Germany. As part of a long-term commitment, Amazon plans to invest more than €7.8 billion in the AWS European Sovereign Cloud in Germany and support an average of 2,800 full-time equivalent jobs annually, contributing approximately €17.2 billion to Germany’s GDP.
- The expansion of the AWS European Sovereign Cloud to Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal represents additional planned investment in new cloud and AI infrastructure that will support local economic growth, productivity and innovation. By bringing AWS capabilities closer to customers, AWS provides organizations with the tools they need to drive digital transformation while meeting strict data residency and low-latency requirements.
- Customers and partners using the AWS European Sovereign Cloud will benefit from the full power of AWS, including the same security, availability, performance, familiar architectures, APIs and security innovations such as the AWS Nitro System. The AWS European Sovereign Cloud will initially include more than 90 services across categories including artificial intelligence, compute, containers, databases, networking, security and storage.
- Public sector customers and organizations across regulated industries throughout Europe have already chosen the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. Early adopters include EWE AG, Medizinische Universität Lausitz – Carl Thiem (MUL-CT), Sanoma Learning and others.
- AWS Partners are committed to delivering their solutions for and within the AWS European Sovereign Cloud. Launch partners include Accenture, adesso, Adobe, Arvato Systems, Atos, Capgemini, Dedalus, Deloitte, Genesys, Kyndryl, Mistral AI, msg group, NVIDIA, SAP, SoftwareOne and many more.
European customers across regulated sectors — including government, healthcare, financial services, defense and aerospace, energy, and telecommunications — can now use the AWS European Sovereign Cloud to accelerate innovation while meeting strict compliance and data sovereignty requirements.
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