What people use sovereign cloud for, and why

• More than half of organizations globally already use sovereign cloud; more than a third plan to within twelve months.
• Nearly half treat sovereign cloud as part of a broader multicloud/hybrid strategy, while 43% see it as their primary cloud platform.
• Data privacy and security is the top reason for choosing sovereign cloud, cited by 51%, alongside regulatory compliance, vendor risk management, operational resilience, and geopolitical risk mitigation.
• 72% say their interest in digital sovereignty has increased over the past six months, driven by geopolitical tension, regulatory change, and economic uncertainty.
• For sovereign SaaS, the most-prioritized capabilities are data residency/jurisdictional control, protection against foreign-government data access, control over operational and administrative access, and data portability including the ability to exit.
• 41% prioritize transparency about AI model usage and training data.
• When choosing a sovereign partner, the top attributes are compliance credentials, security capabilities, and demonstrable local knowledge.
• Nearly two-thirds say dependency on foreign AI providers is a major or moderate concern.
• More than 42% already use sovereign cloud to build or run AI solutions, with a further 38% planning to within twelve months.
• Top AI use cases for sovereign infrastructure: AI processing sensitive or regulated data, AI applied to corporate strategy and intellectual property, and AI handling personally identifiable information.
• On training data, 47% say full ownership and control is critical, with a further 51% saying it is important even if third-party data is sometimes used.
• Cost is the most-cited barrier to implementation, followed by complexity.
• Where current offerings fall short: insufficient transparency, limited portability, and insufficient operational independence.

Above summary generated by AI, I have not verified the output.

Source: IDC Worldwide Digital Sovereignty Survey, June 2026 (n=600, 15 countries, multiple industries). Reported in When “Sovereign” Becomes Strategic: What Organizations Actually Want from Digital Sovereignty, by Rachel Nasir.