Sovereign and innovative: the new reality for the cloud in Belgium
Sovereign cloud is becoming increasingly important for Belgian organizations and companies. But how can you combine data autonomy with innovation? At AXI, we believe that a hybrid approach, with a Belgian private cloud as a sovereign foundation, is the key to a secure, flexible, and compliant cloud strategy.
The call for data sovereignty is growing louder. Organizations want to be able to better determine and limit where their data is located, who has access to it, and what legislation it is subject to. Certainly within the Belgian government and healthcare sector, where sensitive information circulates on a daily basis, the requirements for security, compliance, and transparency are stricter than ever.
At the same time, cloud technologies continue to develop at a rapid pace. Companies want to innovate, scale, and work efficiently without compromising on security or legal compliance.
What is sovereign cloud and why is it important?
Sovereign cloud means that organizations retain complete control over their data: where it is located, who is allowed to process it and access it, and under which jurisdiction it falls. For many organizations, this is crucial: not only do they have to comply with European regulations such as the GDPR and the new NIS2 directive, or sector-specific rules such as DORA, they also have to be resilient to extraterritorial legislation such as the US CLOUD Act.
The latter law gives US authorities the power to compel cloud providers with a link to the US to disclose data, even when that data is physically located abroad, even within the EU. This puts pressure on data sovereignty and creates legal uncertainty for European companies that work with cloud providers with a US parent company or other strong ties to the US.
Sovereign cloud offers a solution to these risks by keeping data physically and legally within secure borders.
Not every cloud solution guarantees sovereignty
Both public and private cloud solutions offer many technical advantages. However, they do not automatically guarantee data sovereignty.
- Public cloud providers often operate on a global scale, with data centers spread across the world. As a result, it is not always clear which legislation applies to the data or who can access it.
- Private clouds often offer more guarantees, but the same applies here: if the infrastructure is located (partly) outside Belgium or the EU, or is managed by a party with a foreign parent organization, there is still a risk that (sensitive) data will fall outside the desired control.
Organizations with high requirements for compliance, privacy, and risk management therefore need a cloud strategy based on sovereignty.
Sovereignty is not an all-or-nothing story
A sovereign cloud does not have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. In practice, a hybrid cloud model can support sovereignty, although that does not mean that every part of that setup is automatically sovereign.
Sovereignty usually refers to the components that are explicitly subject to local control and legislation (such as on-premise or a private cloud in Belgium). Public cloud can contribute to sovereignty, provided the right choices and measures (encryption, key management, logging, regional hosting) are in place, but it can never offer all the guarantees.
In practice, a workable strategy could look like this:
- On-premise infrastructure remains important for data and applications that require maximum physical control and isolation, such as in some medical or government applications.
- Private cloud, hosted in a Belgian data center under local management, with guarantees regarding data localization and access.
- Public cloud components where sovereignty is less crucial, or where specific measures still allow for sufficient control.
This hybrid approach allows data and workloads to be segmented based on sensitivity and placed where they can be managed most securely and efficiently. AXI helps Belgian organizations with this by providing a tailor-made cloud strategy that combines innovation, compliance, and control.
The role of local infrastructure
Local private cloud solutions often form the heart of a sovereign cloud strategy. AXI's private cloud is sovereign by design: fully hosted in Belgian data centers, under local management, and subject exclusively to Belgian and European legislation. This ensures that sensitive data never ends up outside the desired legal or geographical boundaries.
Our private cloud infrastructure is specifically tailored to the needs of organizations with strict compliance requirements. By intelligently combining private and public components, we create a hybrid setup that guarantees both security and control as well as scalability and flexibility, in line with the Belgian reality.
The AXI Private Cloud meets all current Belgian and European legal requirements for a sovereign cloud solution. This was confirmed after a thorough analysis carried out by AXI, in collaboration with a renowned external law firm. This means you can be sure that your data will remain within sovereign borders, both legally and operationally.
AXI: partner in sovereignty and innovation
Sovereign cloud is becoming increasingly important for organizations that manage sensitive data in an growingly complex landscape of regulations and geopolitics. But setting up a sovereign cloud strategy is not purely a technical exercise. It requires an understanding of Belgian and European regulations, knowledge of sector sensitivities, and the right technology choices.
With AXI, you are choosing a sovereign private cloud that offers you security and compliance today, while unlocking the innovative power of hybrid cloud models. This allows you to combine absolute control over your data with the flexibility to move your organization forward.
Discover how your organization can transition to AXI's sovereign private cloud and how you can prepare for tomorrow's compliance requirements. Contact our experts.
