Within Cronos Europa’s Sovereign Tech series, we explore how different approaches to cloud sovereignty can be combined in practice.
Digital sovereignty is often framed as a binary choice: commit to European infrastructure or remain dependent on hyperscalers. In reality, most organisations operate across a spectrum.In reality, most organisations operate across a spectrum.
We spoke with Michael Kelarou, Cloud Expert at Arxus, a sister company within De Cronos Groep, to understand how organisations can navigate this spectrum, from sovereign public cloud with built-in controls, to Azure Local, to fully private cloud environments.
The binary framing of sovereignty actually holds organisations back. Real sovereignty looks more like a spectrum.
On one end, sovereign public cloud environments offer built-in controls: data residency, confidential computing, operator access restrictions, and EU Data Boundary compliance. On the other end, sits fully private infrastructure, operating entirely within your own or a trusted partner’s environment, local or European.
Between these extremes, there are meaningful options.
Solutions such as Azure Local or sovereign private cloud environments allow organisations to apply control where it matters most, without giving up the benefits of cloud.
Most organisations don't need to choose one extreme. What they need is clarity about which workloads require which level of control, and a roadmap that can evolve as regulations and geopolitical conditions change.
A sovereign cloud strategy starts with understanding workloads.
Not every system requires the same level of control, and applying sovereign infrastructure everywhere introduces unnecessary cost and complexity.
Start by identifying genuinely sensitive workloads: those subject to strict regulation, carrying real operational or reputational risk, or needing to function even if connectivity to public cloud is disrupted.
From there, assess three dimensions:
This last dimension has become critical. Business continuity planning now needs to account for geopolitical disruption, not just technical failure or natural disaster.
Azure Local is the right choice when organisations need Azure-native capabilities but have workloads that cannot or should not run in the public cloud.
This applies for:
It allows organisations to combine familiar Azure tooling with more control over where workloads run.
A growing use case is sovereign AI, where organisations want to benefit from AI capabilities while maintaining control over data used in training and inference. Azure Local, with Foundry Local, allows organisations to run AI workloads locally, gaining productivity benefits without compromising data governance.
Technology alone does not guarantee sovereignty.
Azure Local, like any platform, only contributes to sovereignty when embedded in well-designed architecture.
Sovereignty is therefore defined by architectural choices.
Portability, open standards, and infrastructure-as-code practices determine whether organisations retain the ability to adapt and move over time. The difference between genuine control and its appearance lies in design-time decisions, not in platform selection.
Several misconceptions still shape how organisations approach this topic.
One of the most common is the assumption that data residency automatically equals sovereignty. In practice, the key question is not only where data is stored, but who can access it, under which legal conditions, and how access is technically controlled.
Another misconception is that sovereignty requires organisations to move away from hyperscalers entirely. For many, this would mean losing access to innovation, scalability, and ecosystem integration. The objective isn’t independence, but avoiding a single point of failure and retaining the ability to move when needed.
Sovereign cloud is not about replacing one model with another.
It is about creating a balanced architecture that aligns with organisational priorities.
In practice, this often results in a layered approach.
Public cloud can support scalable, less sensitive workloads. Azure Local or private cloud environments can be used where additional control is required.
What matters is that these choices are deliberate, and that organisations retain visibility and control across the entire landscape.
Within Cronos Europa, we see this as part of a broader sovereignty strategy. Together with partners such as Arxus, we support organisations in designing architectures that combine innovation, flexibility, and control.
