Consists of datacenter operations in 16 international locations and Digital Resilience Dedication.
Forty-two years in the past, Microsoft launched the very first model of Microsoft Phrase. It was a significant milestone within the firm’s journey to reinforce individuals’s productiveness via innovation. It additionally marked the younger and rising firm’s first large step in Europe with the primary Microsoft product localized in a number of European languages, beginning with German and French.
Since then, our financial reliance on Europe has at all times run deep. We acknowledge that our enterprise is critically depending on sustaining the belief of consumers, international locations, and governments throughout Europe. We respect European values, adjust to European legal guidelines, and actively defend Europe’s cybersecurity. Our assist for Europe has at all times been–and at all times will likely be–steadfast.
In a time of geopolitical volatility, we’re dedicated to offering digital stability. That’s the reason at the moment Microsoft is asserting 5 digital commitments to Europe. These begin with an growth of our cloud and AI infrastructure in Europe, geared toward enabling each nation to totally use these applied sciences to strengthen their financial competitiveness. They usually embody a promise to uphold Europe’s digital resilience no matter geopolitical and commerce volatility.
As a multinational firm, we consider in trans-Atlantic ties that promote mutual financial progress and prosperity. We had been happy the Trump administration and the European Union just lately agreed to droop additional tariff escalation whereas they search to barter a reciprocal commerce settlement. We hope that profitable talks can resolve tariff points and scale back non-tariff limitations, in step with the suggestions within the latest Draghi report.
We’ll at all times be devoted to creating jobs, selling financial alternatives, and strengthening cybersecurity on each side of the Atlantic. The 5 commitments beneath, just like the very first European model of Microsoft Phrase, take our assist for Europe one other step ahead.
1. We’ll assist construct a broad AI and cloud ecosystem throughout Europe
We acknowledge that European nations need and wish a world class and broad AI and cloud ecosystem. In the present day, we’re asserting plans to extend our European datacenter capability by 40% over the subsequent two years. We’re increasing datacenter operations in 16 European international locations. When mixed with our latest development, the plans we’re asserting at the moment will greater than double our European datacenter capability between 2023 and 2027. It’ll end in cloud operations in additional than 200 datacenters throughout the continent.
This growth will play an essential function in boosting Europe’s financial progress and competitiveness. We consider that broad AI diffusion will likely be some of the essential drivers of innovation and productiveness progress over the subsequent decade. Like electrical energy and different general-purpose applied sciences up to now, AI and cloud datacenters symbolize the subsequent stage of industrialization. They’re creating real-world capabilities to gasoline enterprise and manufacturing innovation, run nationwide well being methods, allow safe authorities companies, and assist digital instruments in training—all whereas conserving knowledge and operations near house, topic to European legal guidelines and rules.
Public cloud datacenters
Our public cloud datacenters are a basis for the diversified cloud ecosystem we’re dedicated to supporting throughout Europe. This consists of the Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty, a package deal of applied sciences and configurations to assist governments and different prospects run on Azure in our public cloud datacenters with larger management over knowledge location, encryption, and administrative entry.
Sovereign cloud datacenters
A second facet of our diversified strategy entails sovereign cloud datacenters. In France, Microsoft has partnered with Capgemini and Orange, who shaped a three way partnership named Bleu. Designed as a “cloud de confiance” (trusted cloud) platform, Bleu gives a broad vary of Microsoft Azure cloud companies and Microsoft 365 productiveness instruments operated beneath French management. In Germany, the same sovereign cloud initiative is underway via a partnership between Microsoft, SAP, and Arvato Techniques (a Bertelsmann IT subsidiary). This effort, via SAP’s subsidiary, Delos Cloud GmbH, is making a sovereign cloud platform for the German public sector, hosted in German datacenters and operated by German personnel.
Help for European cloud suppliers
A 3rd facet of our work entails our collaboration with European cloud suppliers to supply Microsoft purposes and companies on their native cloud infrastructure. This partnership gives these European suppliers with the chance to run Microsoft purposes on extra favorable phrases than we make out there to Amazon and Google. Moreover, we’re growing new know-how and licensing options tailor-made for these European suppliers and the markets they serve.
Rising choices
Given latest geopolitical volatility, we acknowledge that European governments seemingly will think about extra choices. A few of these might contain public financing to assist European home-grown choices. We acknowledge the significance of a diversified know-how ecosystem, and we’re dedicated to collaborating with European individuals throughout the tech ecosystem.
Respect for European legal guidelines
Microsoft is investing tens of billions of {dollars} yearly in increasing its datacenters throughout Europe. These investments aren’t on wheels. They’re everlasting constructions and topic to native legal guidelines, rules, and governments. Like each citizen and firm, we don’t at all times agree with each coverage of each authorities. However even once we’ve misplaced circumstances in European courts, Microsoft has lengthy revered and complied with European legal guidelines.
We perceive that European legal guidelines apply to our enterprise practices in Europe, simply as native legal guidelines apply to native practices in america and comparable legal guidelines apply elsewhere on the earth. This consists of European competitors regulation and the Digital Markets Act, amongst others. We’re dedicated not solely to constructing digital infrastructure for Europe, however to respecting the function that legal guidelines throughout Europe play in regulating our services.
2. We’ll uphold Europe’s digital resilience even when there may be geopolitical volatility
By constructing a European cloud for Europe, Microsoft is dedicated to serving to Europe navigate the unsure geopolitical and commerce surroundings and higher handle danger by strengthening the continent’s digital resilience. We’ll at all times try to be a voice of cause that promotes mutual alternatives and secure ties throughout the Atlantic. We the truth is consider that even amidst present commerce and tariff disputes, there’s a sturdy consensus in Washington supporting the sustained circulate of digital companies from america to Europe.
We are also listening intently to the views of European governments and leaders. We acknowledge that European international locations, like nations in every single place, have to have rock-solid confidence within the digital infrastructure on which they rely. To make sure this confidence, we’ll take the next three steps:
A European cloud for Europe
Microsoft is headquartered in america, however we offer cloud companies to Europe via company entities headquartered in Europe. To additional cement the nexus between Microsoft and Europe, going ahead our European datacenter operations and their boards will likely be overseen by a European board of administrators that consists solely of European nationals and operates beneath European regulation.
A Digital Resilience Dedication
Within the unlikely occasion we’re ever ordered by any authorities wherever on the earth to droop or stop cloud operations in Europe, we’re committing that Microsoft will promptly and vigorously contest such a measure utilizing all authorized avenues out there, together with by pursuing litigation in courtroom. By together with a brand new European Digital Resilience Dedication in all of our contracts with European nationwide governments and the European Fee, we’ll make this dedication legally binding on Microsoft Company and all its subsidiaries.
Microsoft has a demonstrated historical past of pursuing litigation when that has been wanted to guard the rights of our prospects and different stakeholders. This consists of 4 lawsuits we filed in opposition to the U.S. Government Department throughout President Obama’s tenure, together with to guard the privateness of our prospects’ knowledge in america and Europe. It additionally included, throughout President Trump’s first time period, a profitable resolution earlier than the U.S. Supreme Courtroom to uphold the rights of staff who’re immigrants. When vital, we’re ready to go to courtroom.
We’re assured of our authorized rights to make sure steady operation of our datacenters in Europe. And we’re ready to again this confidence with our contractual commitments to European governments.
Enterprise continuity partnerships
Lastly, we’ll designate and rely on European companions with contingency preparations for operational continuity within the unlikely occasion Microsoft had been ever required by a courtroom to droop companies. We’re already enabling our companions in France and Germany to do that for the Bleu and Delos datacenters, and we’ll pursue preparations for our public cloud datacenters in Europe. We’ll retailer back-up copies of our code in a safe repository in Switzerland, and we’ll present our European companions with the authorized rights wanted to entry and use this code if wanted for this objective.
3. We’ll proceed to guard the privateness of European knowledge
Microsoft has lengthy been on the forefront in designing and implementing know-how options to guard buyer knowledge. We allow prospects to regulate the place their knowledge is saved and processed, how it’s encrypted and secured, and when Microsoft can entry it. We provide prospects sturdy capabilities throughout all the cloud stack from infrastructure to platform to software program as a service, from Azure to Microsoft 365 to Dynamics 365. We again our technical options with sturdy contractual commitments and, as famous above, a demonstrated historical past of going to courtroom on behalf of our prospects.
The EU knowledge boundary undertaking
Reflecting our persevering with dedication to innovation, we just lately completed implementing our EU Knowledge Boundary undertaking. This gives European prospects the flexibility to have their knowledge saved and processed in Europe. Since January 2024, our European business and public sector prospects have been capable of retailer and course of their knowledge and private identifiers for Microsoft core cloud companies—together with Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, Energy Platform, and Azure companies—throughout the EU and EFTA areas. Three months in the past, Microsoft accomplished the undertaking by extending the EU Knowledge Boundary to incorporate skilled companies knowledge from technical assist interactions. And, critically, we make these options out there in all our European cloud areas and all through our tech stack, from IaaS, to PaaS, to SaaS, together with M365 Copilot.
Further safety and encryption choices
Along with the EU Knowledge Boundary, we offer European prospects with a number of choices for securing and encrypting their knowledge. Our Confidential Compute choices in Azure eradicate the flexibility of third events—together with Microsoft—to entry buyer knowledge by making certain knowledge is processed inside a trusted surroundings the shopper alone controls. We allow prospects to create a “lockbox” round their knowledge throughout Azure, Dynamics 365, and Microsoft 365 by giving them the flexibility to evaluation and approve earlier than Microsoft accesses their knowledge for buyer and repair assist operations. We additionally allow prospects to safe their knowledge with encryption keys that they, not Microsoft, management with Azure Key Vault and Microsoft Purview Buyer Key. Our Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty gives prospects a variety of different instruments to safe knowledge, shield in opposition to unauthorized entry, and fulfill authorized necessities.
A robust authorized observe document
Along with technical measures, we’ll proceed our combat to guard the rights of European prospects. Microsoft has a robust observe document of going to courtroom within the uncommon cases that we have to shield European knowledge from unauthorized entry. Now we have constantly fought authorized calls for that battle with European regulation and have taken our challenges all the best way to the Supreme Courtroom of america. In 2018, as a direct results of litigation Microsoft introduced on behalf of our European prospects, the U.S. Congress enacted laws that ensures our proper to object to U.S. regulation enforcement calls for to entry European knowledge that battle with EU regulation.
We codified our promise to guard our European prospects’ knowledge with our Defending Your Knowledge dedication, through which we agreed to problem any authorities demand for EU public sector or enterprise buyer knowledge the place we’ve a authorized foundation for doing so. Now we have included that dedication in our buyer contracts and backed it up with a promise to compensate prospects if we disclose their knowledge in violation of EU regulation.
New alternatives for innovation
In the present day we decide to additional strengthen and increase options that permit European prospects to regulate and shield their knowledge. We’re embarking on new steps to take heed to and seek the advice of with European prospects to construct on what already is essentially the most full, widest vary of privateness, safety, and sovereignty options that any cloud companies supplier now gives to prospects in Europe. We stay up for sharing within the coming months the conclusions that emerge and the brand new steps we determine to take.
For extra particulars about Microsoft’s knowledge safety and compliance packages, see the Microsoft Belief Heart.
4. We’ll at all times assist shield and defend Europe’s cybersecurity
As struggle erupted in 2022, Microsoft instantly helped evacuate Ukraine’s crucial knowledge and know-how companies to our datacenters throughout Europe. This transfer ensured Ukraine’s continued digital operation outdoors the vary of cruise missile and air assaults. In some ways, this illustrates the function {that a} broad community of datacenters performs in supporting not solely digital however broader resilience, each for a rustic and a continent.
Uninterrupted, world-class cybersecurity safety
Along with safeguarding the nation’s knowledge, we instantly helped Ukraine’s officers and residents defend their nation from Russian cyberattacks. Because the begin of the struggle, Microsoft has offered greater than $500 million of free know-how and monetary help to Ukraine and has sustained our substantial assist to today. With out interruption, we’ve offered cybersecurity assist to NATO, Ukraine, and different European governments, together with by sharing cybersecurity risk intelligence, defending elections, and disrupting assaults in opposition to European governments, corporations, and residents.
New measures to guard in opposition to new threats
Greater than three years for the reason that begin of the struggle in Ukraine, European governments and international locations confront ongoing cyberattacks from Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. As these threats develop in quantity and class, sturdy cybersecurity safety and coordination are extra essential than ever, as is the flexibility to reply quickly to regional calls for. That’s the reason at the moment we’re asserting the next cybersecurity steps, which will likely be adopted by extra bulletins within the coming weeks.
A brand new Deputy CISO for Europe
In the present day, our Chief Info Safety Officer (CISO) Igor Tsyganskiy introduced that we’re appointing a brand new Deputy CISO for Europe as a part of the Microsoft Cybersecurity Governance Council. This senior govt will likely be devoted to Microsoft’s safety obligations in Europe. Final 12 months we created this council, consisting of our World CISO and Deputy Chief Info Safety Officers (Deputy CISOs) representing every of our know-how companies. This Council oversees the corporate’s cyber dangers, defenses, and compliance throughout areas and domains.
The appointment of a Deputy CISO for Europe displays the significance and world affect of EU cybersecurity rules and the corporate’s dedication to assembly and exceeding these expectations to prioritize cybersecurity throughout the area. This new place will report on to Microsoft’s CISO. The Deputy CISO for Europe will likely be accountable for compliance with present and rising cybersecurity rules in Europe, together with the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), the NIS 2 Directive, and the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA). These legal guidelines will show transformative not solely in EU markets, however worldwide, and Microsoft is actively engaged in making ready for what lies forward.
New safety steps beneath the Cyber Resilience Act
We consider the CRA will reshape the regulatory panorama as a brand new gold customary for cybersecurity, a lot because the GDPR did for privateness. We’ll construct on the work of our Safe Future Initiative and dedicate extra assets to adjust to the CRA. As its deadlines strategy, we stay up for persevering with our years of engagement with the European Fee, business companions, and prospects on CRA implementation efforts. We’re dedicated to our function as a member of the European Fee’s Professional Group on Cybersecurity of Merchandise with Digital Parts.
To that finish, Microsoft will proceed to interact with stakeholders throughout a variety of CRA matters. These will embody incident and vulnerability reporting, safety by design and default, cybersecurity finest practices and enhancing open-source safety and attestation. We’ll share our improvements that assist implementing the CRA important safety necessities to assist European financial operators additionally put together for CRA compliance.
Safety is the inspiration of belief. To maintain that belief, we’ll have interaction an unbiased auditor to confirm and validate our commitments to Europe. We all know that folks will solely use know-how that they belief, which is why we’re dedicating assets to speed up our compliance with the CRA and committing to unbiased validation.
5. We’ll assist strengthen Europe’s financial competitiveness, together with for open supply
Our AI Entry Ideas
We acknowledge the significance of making certain open entry to our AI and cloud platform and infrastructure throughout Europe, together with for open-source improvement. That’s the reason we introduced final 12 months a set of AI Entry Ideas and we’ll introduce new enhancements to those commitments within the coming months.
Open entry throughout Europe
These rules have ensured that our Azure AI platform and infrastructure is open to a wide range of enterprise fashions—each open-source and proprietary. We now host greater than 1,800 AI fashions. Most of those fashions are open-source fashions, comparable to these from European-based AI builders Mistral and Hugging Face. And they’re all out there through public APIs to facilitate interoperability. Which means prospects can select which fashions to make use of and the place to construct their AI-powered options: on Azure, in one other public cloud, or in their very own datacenter. Lastly, we allow prospects to export and switch their knowledge. Final 12 months we eradicated charges for the switch of knowledge when prospects select to modify to a different cloud supplier.
A basis for European competitiveness
Over the previous 12 months, we’ve seen European startups, established companies, and different organizations make the most of the open entry to fashions and instruments that we offer to innovate, develop, and compete within the new AI financial system. This consists of know-how startups comparable to Factorial in Spain to construct AI-driven automation for HR professionals, iGenius in Italy to develop AI options for regulated industries, and Visma in Norway to supply AI options for corporations in accounting, payroll, invoicing, and past. And it consists of the Institute Curie in France to analysis new therapies for most cancers, UBS in Switzerland to create the way forward for banking, and Heineken in The Netherlands to spice up worker productiveness.
Constructing European infrastructure for Europe’s future
We acknowledge that Microsoft should continually stay targeted on incomes and sustaining our “license to function” in every nation throughout Europe. With datacenters and digital know-how, this begins with every local people and nation and consists of officers with continental-wide obligations.
Since we first introduced the primary model of Microsoft Phrase to Europe 42 years in the past, digital know-how has modified the methods individuals work many instances over. But as we glance ahead, we consider the second quarter of the twenty first century might convey even larger modifications forward. Synthetic intelligence gives what might change into essentially the most highly effective device for individuals within the historical past of humanity. And like all instruments, there will likely be some who will search to show it right into a weapon.
Greater than ever, will probably be crucial for us to assist Europe harness the ability of this new know-how to strengthen its competitiveness. We might want to associate with smaller and bigger corporations alike. We might want to assist governments, non-profit organizations, and open-source builders throughout the continent. And we might want to pay attention intently to European leaders, respect European values, and cling to European legal guidelines. We’re dedicated to doing all this stuff properly.
As we celebrated Microsoft’s fiftieth birthday earlier this month, we acknowledged that our longstanding presence in Europe has been a lynchpin of our success. Europe has handled us properly. Our assist for Europe has at all times been—and at all times will likely be—steadfast.
