Amazon Web Services has launched its European Sovereign Cloud, a fully isolated infrastructure designed to address EU data privacy concerns. The new service operates under a separate German legal entity with EU citizen staff and physically isolated hardware, aiming to bypass US CLOUD Act jurisdiction.

This move responds to years of legal uncertainty following the invalidation of the Safe Harbour and Privacy Shield agreements. EU organizations have long struggled with US cloud providers, as AWS, Azure, and Google remain subject to US surveillance laws despite hosting data in European regions.

The sovereign cloud offers key features like local management of IAM and Route53, but launches with service gaps including missing CloudFront and Identity Centre. It's available globally but targets EU-adjacent markets like the UK, offering a compliant path for international companies operating in Europe.