As global risks rise, businesses are looking to sovereignty for infrastructure control

Factors such as rising geopolitical tensions, cyber threats, energy instability, and supply chain disruption continue to reshape global technology. As a result, businesses are rethinking where critical workloads should sit.

Organizations are looking at data sovereignty to achieve greater control and resilience during turbulent times, shifting the concept away from a legal consideration and toward an infrastructure design decision.

In fact, sovereignty is cited as important to almost all (98%) IT service providers when choosing cloud or data center providers for their organization, according to our research. With many businesses opting for local data control, reassessing where their infrastructure, workloads, and critical data physically reside will be key.

The factors driving infrastructure changes

Geopolitical risk was once a secondary consideration in infrastructure planning, but it has quickly become a board-level concern. Now, 96% of IT service providers cite geopolitical threats when devising infrastructure strategies. They are thinking more about geographic exposure and the dependencies that sit underneath digital operations. The shift was already underway before recent geopolitical tensions intensified this shift. Gartner figures from 2025 showed that 61% of CIOs and IT leaders in Western Europe were looking to increase reliance on local cloud providers to protect their data.

The key threats shaping moves toward localization include energy price spikes from global conflicts (95%) and disruptions to shipping routes and cyber campaigns by hostile states (both 93%). Tightening data sovereignty laws and regulatory frameworks are also playing a part. For example, the ICO updated its international transfer guidance in January 2026, with the introduction of a three-step test to decide whether a data transfer should be restricted, such as when the UK’s GDPR applies.

Organizations want to know which jurisdictions apply when opting for a provider in a particular region, and whether clear evidence of data movement can be provided if regulators ask the question. 46% of IT service providers also cite ISO 27001/22301 and similar certifications as a main factor when it comes to choosing a UK data centre provider for sovereignty-sensitive workloads.

Compliance in an ideal scenario should inform infrastructure decisions from the very beginning, and certified, carrier-neutral data centres can play a big role here. They offer predictable governance and clearer evidence that regulatory requirements are being met, alongside low-latency connectivity to ensure innovation can continue to happen across borders.

Cloud strategies are evolving

Sovereignty concerns are greatly impacting cloud, colocation, and hybrid infrastructure decisions. In particular, cloud strategies are changing, with much more consideration around where workloads are being housed.

An often opted-for approach is the most sensitive data being kept in-country, while the less sensitive data is pushed out to the bigger cloud platforms. This distinction is important because the more sensitive data requires much tighter jurisdictional control, perhaps due to regulatory requirements or sometimes because of the market they serve. Global cloud platforms offer the needed reach for other services that rely on less-critical data.

Organizations must keep in mind that while sovereign cloud initiatives can enhance resilience and control, they must do so in a way that doesn’t foster isolated environments. Sovereignty should never be treated as a boundary. Of course, effective governance of data is crucial, but applications must continue to provide value and workloads that can move if circumstances change. When executed correctly, sovereignty should provide tested failover routes, jurisdictional control, and the ability to leverage the services offered by cloud and network partners.

With geopolitical tensions creating uncertainty, businesses want to be sure that if one part of their infrastructure is negatively affected by an incident, they can continue operating without losing control of sensitive workloads. Data centre interconnections support sovereignty by offering operational redundancy, such as multiple backup power sources.

The role of channel partners

Channel partners can play a central role in the sovereignty shift from board-level concern to practical infrastructure consideration.

As organizations look to achieve greater control over sensitive data and make use of secure access to cloud services, managed service providers (MSPs) and system integrators (SIs) have an opportunity to guide them through the right infrastructure choices.

Channel partners can essentially act more as strategic advisors, helping inform decisions around colocation, cloud connectivity, workload resilience, and secure data movement. The value is in helping those businesses to make sovereignty actionable.

How sovereignty’s success will be judged

With global risks escalating and compliance requirements tightening, data sovereignty is becoming a greater infrastructure priority. Local control is important, but it only creates value when supported by clear governance, strong security and the flexibility to adapt.

Careful decisions must be made around which data stays local and where cloud and colocation can provide value, alongside maintaining continuity during disruption.

For channel partners, this creates an opportunity to help customers connect sovereignty with resilience and performance. Overall, sovereignty’s success will be judged on how well it can support control, connectivity, and continuity.