Google Cloud announces data residency for machine learning in the UK

Google Cloud has unveiled a new data residency commitment in the UK that will allow users to conduct machine learning (ML) processing in region.

Specifically, the move will enable UK businesses to conduct ML processing for Gemini 1.5 Flash, Google’s small language model designed to support high-volume, high-frequency tasks in a cost-efficient way.

Anne-Marie Lamb, sales director UK & Ireland at Google Cloud, described the move as a major step forward on stage at Google Cloud Summit London 2024 and explained that it will help give customers control and peace of mind.

The move will keep all organizational data securely within UK borders, she said, allowing users to ensure that everything from data storage, inference, and output generation happens locally within the country.

“This is a game changer to the UK organizations where data sovereignty is paramount,” Lamb said on stage.

According to the details of the announcement, Google Cloud guarantees that data will only reside in the exact locations designated by a user. The firm has also stated that all ML processing, including Gemini inference and deployment of other ML models creating output generation, will occur in that same location.

Google Cloud positioned this move as building on a similar announcement last year around data residency for Vertex AI, which enabled customers to store ‘data at rest’ in one of 10 available regions including the UK. Data at rest constitutes data stored in a specific location and is not being accessed, processed, or transferred.

In a further commitment to the UK specifically, Google Cloud also announced a new Google Cloud Startup Hub located in Shoreditch, London.

“We also believe that the UK is a hub for innovation and entrepreneurship, so it gives me great pleasure to share we're deepening our investment in the UK startup ecosystem with the launch of our first ever Google Cloud Startup Hub right here in London,” Lamb said.

Data residency across the board

Sovereignty is a huge talking point at the moment as organizations – and even countries – start to demand technology providers provide the option to wall data within particular regions to meet data protection regulations.

All the major cloud providers have announced sovereign cloud offerings, with Forrester analyst Dario Maisto telling ITPro at the time of an AWS sovereign cloud announcement that this is now the “bare minimum” needed to stay relevant.

Increasingly, as is the case with this latest move from Google Cloud, companies are rolling out sovereignty features in specific areas or specific technical functions.

GitHub, for example, recently revealed a data residency feature for its Enterprise Cloud that will allow users to control what regions their code and repository data is stored in. Larry Ellison, CTO and chairman at Oracle, has also expressed his belief that governments will soon demand sovereign cloud.