Google has announced a series of additional security and sovereignty elements for its sovereign cloud in response to EU groups' concerns about trade tensions and the reliance on US tech companies.

First reported by the Financial Times, and later detailed in a blog post from Google, the company is also looking to work more closely with its regional partners in France and Germany to help reassure customers that data will remain within country boundaries.

The move comes as European groups are raising concerns about the potential for the Trump administration to use reliance on US tech companies - such as Google, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and others - as leverage for trade talks.

Local cloud providers have pointed to the White House's attacks on NATO, tariffs on the EU, and threats to invade Greenland as justification for moving off of US hyperscalers and onto local platforms.

The FT reports that, while not naming President Donald Trump specifically, Google's president of customer experience, Hayete Galott, said that global tensions were "creating anxiety in the world."

“Sovereignty used to be a very niche thing, that applied to very regulated industries, such as defence and intelligence,” Galott said. “And suddenly in the current environment, everybody is thinking about it.”

The blog post from Google notes that its updated sovereign cloud solution includes the Google Cloud Data Boundary, which enables customers to create a data boundary and control where data is stored and processed, including ensuring data processing is either in the US or EU and specifying the country where it is stored.

Newly announced today is the "User Data Shield," which adds Mandiant services to validate security for applications built on top of the data boundary.

In addition, through its Google Cloud Dedicated offering, Google's partnership with Thales in France to develop a "Trust Cloud by S3NS" is now available in preview, giving customers access to Google Cloud services with GPUs for AI workloads while being operated by S3NS, a standalone French company.

“For France to truly embrace digital sovereignty, it is essential to have a cloud solution that marries the immense power of hyperscale technology with the strictest local security and operational controls," said Christophe Salomon, EVP, Information Systems and Secured Communication, at Thales. "S3NS is committed to providing French organizations with access to advanced cloud services, including critical AI capabilities, all operated within France by a European operator to meet and exceed the rigorous SecNumCloud standards.”

The project with Thales has been ongoing since 2021. The cloud giant has a similar offering being worked on in Germany with Deutsche's T-Systems since 2021.

The sovereign cloud is available as a "Supervised Cloud" offering, which is physically operated by T-Systems and kept separate from other Google Cloud infrastructure.

The reassurance from Google about its commitment to EU sovereignty comes just weeks after Microsoft released a similar statement addressing EU customer anxiety, adding that it would increase its data center capacity in Europe by 40 percent over the next two years.

In a blog post, Microsoft president Brad Smith wrote: "Given recent geopolitical volatility, we recognize that European governments likely will consider additional options.

"Some of these may involve public financing to support European home-grown offerings. We recognize the importance of a diversified technology ecosystem, and we are committed to collaborating with European participants across the tech ecosystem."