Worried Europeans can now cut Azure's phone cord completely

Azure Local can now run fully disconnected with no cloud connectivity, Microsoft confirmed at the London leg of its AI tour.

The latest change comes amid heightened trade and geopolitical tensions between the US administration and Europe, with more customers in the trading bloc seeking reassurances about digital sovereignty.

Like rival US hyperscalers, Microsoft has rolled out initiatives in Europe in a bid to address jittery locals worried about the possibility – no matter how remote – of service interruption or their data being accessed by American officials under the US CLOUD Act.

In March, Microsoft completed its EU Data Boundary service, then added more features in November. Yet for a growing number of organizations in Europe, only infrastructure under their direct control will do.

Azure Local (formerly Azure Stack HCI) is Microsoft's answer to those concerns. Using specialized hardware, Azure Local lets customers run workloads on-premises. However, it still needed ...