Across Europe, business leaders are asking IT Operations for two things at once: local control and auditable AI. Over the past months those asks became more concrete.
What’s changed
- Microsoft introduced a Sovereign Public and Private Cloud approach, plus Azure/Microsoft 365 Local patterns, to confine processing to Europe and limit operator access to EU-resident staff, with governance features designed for regulated buyers. The promise is operational sovereignty you can verify - not just data at rest.
- The European Commission published the General-Purpose AI (GPAI) Code of Practice. It’s a voluntary tool now, but it sets a clear path to AI Act readiness on transparency, copyright handling, and safety - well before enforcement dates arrive. Expect it to become a standard part of due diligence.
Why this matters
If you sell to government, run payments, or manage citizen data, the discussion is no longer “Where is the data?” but “Who can touch it, under what controls, and can we prove it?” The sovereign model helps - provided the commitments live in your contracts, keys, and support processes. In AI, the Code gives teams a common template for model documentation and evaluation, which reduces friction with buyers and supervisors.
What to do this month
- Segment by sovereignty level. Identify the 1-2 workloads that truly require EU-resident operational access (e.g., citizen services, payment rails). Pilot them on the sovereign pattern and ensure tamper-evident logging and access commitments are written into your terms.
- Build a GPAI register you can show. For each model or agent: purpose, data sources with training-data summary, evaluation results, safety mitigations, and human-in-the-loop. Align to the Commission’s Code so you can demonstrate progress before audits.
- Update sourcing language. Ask vendors to attest to EU-resident access and GPAI Code alignment; tie breaches to remedies that matter to you. Microsoft’s broader European digital resilience commitments can be used as a reference in negotiations.
The takeaway
Sovereignty and AI governance are now operational choices, not abstract goals. Start small, make it verifiable, and write it down. The organizations that codify these patterns this quarter will move faster when enforcement dates and procurement questions arrive.
Innofactor can help you pilot EU-only access and stand up a GPAI register—practical, verifiable, audit-ready.
