Forrester says organisations are increasingly treating digital sovereignty as a core design requirement for new cloud and AI projects, rather than addressing it later. This matters particularly in Europe, where regulatory and geopolitical concerns are heightened by reliance on US technology providers and limited domestic hyperscale AI capacity.

Buyers are examining not only where data is held, but also control of encryption keys, operational access, model training locations and applicable laws. The EU is seeking up to seven AI gigafactories with up to €10 billion in public funding and €20 billion in expected private investment, while European providers hold about 15 per cent of the region’s cloud infrastructure market; Gartner expects sovereign-cloud spending to more than triple from 2025 to 2027.