On May 6, 2021, we announced a new pledge for the European Union. If you are a commercial or public sector customer in the EU, we will go beyond our existing data residency commitments and enable you to process and store all your data in the EU. In other words, we will not need to move your data outside the EU. This commitment will apply across all of Microsoft’s main cloud services—Azure, Microsoft 365, and Dynamics 365. We are beginning work immediately on this added step, and we will complete by the end of next year the implementation of all engineering work needed to execute on it. We’re calling this plan the EU Data Boundary for the Microsoft Cloud.
The new step we’re taking builds on our already strong portfolio of solutions and commitments that protect our customers’ data, and we hope today’s update is another step toward responding to customers who want even greater data residency commitments. We will continue to consult with customers and regulators about this plan in the coming months and move forward in a way that is responsive to their feedback.