Sort sovereignty risks (before they get scary) 🎃 | Cloud Core.

Sovereignty won't disappear with the next US election cycle. It’s a growing priority for governments and enterprises, as dependence on non-EU services and tech becomes an increasingly pressing concern. 

But sorting sovereignty doesn’t need to be scary.  

Check out these sovereignty blueprints 👇 

They cover 9 levels with different combinations of sovereignty, cost-efficiency, flexibility and resilience, giving you architectural shortcuts to match organisational needs. 

To determine the right level, we recommend conducting a sovereignty risk assessment, but broadly speaking: 

Levels 1-3: Cost-efficient and agile, with sovereignty trade-offs 

• High cost efficiency and technical agility but with sovereignty trade-offs  

• Keep using hyperscaler cloud 

• Best suited for processing less sensitive data and agile companies that need flexibility over sovereignty 

Levels 4-6: Balanced control and compliance 

• Provide more control 

• Use EU sovereign solutions 

• Best suited for highly regulated industries 

Levels 7-9: Maximum sovereignty but less scalable 

• High level of sovereignty but lag in scale and features 

• High costs 

• Best suited for governments or critical services 

Learn about assessing sovereignty risks and planning a sovereignty roadmap in this guide ⬇️ 

“We’re using AI chatbots. What do we need to do for EU AI Act compliance?” 

That’s one of the FAQs answered in our recent webinar featuring Head of AI Allan Chong and Governance, Risk & Compliance Advisory Lead Sander Nieuwenhuis. 

The AI Act takes a risk-based approach to regulating AI systems, and compliance requirements depend on risk level. 

Check out these webinar highlights: 

• Head to 15:30: Sander explains compliance requirements for AI product recommendation engines and chatbots vs, for example, customer screening applications  

• Check out 21:56: Get a clear breakdown of the 17-step classification process for determining an AI system’s risk level and associated requirements 

🚨 Why act now? Governance, general purpose AI rules and penalties for prohibited AI came into for in August. In 10 months (August 2026), more rules come into force relating to high-risk AI. Getting your classification right now will save you headaches in a few months. 

🤖 Agent(ic) provocateurs 

We’ve all seen the agentic hype and perceived benefits, but that hype neglects a key reality: although organisations want to reap the cost and efficiency benefits, most teams aren’t ready for the complexity of agentic AI implementation. 

Before you dive in with agent development and deployment, you need the right infrastructure foundations. This involves answering questions like: 

Can your infra handle autonomous agents accessing systems at unprecedented scale?

What security policies do you need when AI has the autonomy to take action?

How do you integrate agents across the ecosystem when vendors all have their own tooling?

📢 Cloud quote of the month 

“It was crucial for us to keep development and support under one provider. With such a complex system it wouldn’t be feasible to have some team working on development and some others on support. Having all-in-one is the optimal solution. With Nordcloud support, we have already broadened the internal user base, expanding over several City units.” 

Kimmo Lehtonen, Product Owner, City of Helsinki 

📚 Read how we helped the City of Helsinki create a unified system for managing land leases. 

📰 What we’ve been talking about this month 

🤖 How do people use ChatGPT? OpenAI released the largest study to date 

🗝️ Unlock 3x ROI with AI – with data you already own [Whitepaper]  

🔗 How a German automotive company developed a unified API marketplace for developers 

🕺What visiting a virtual nightclub revealed about human interaction 

🗓️ Some dates for your diary 

Events 

• 7 Oct – AWS Community Day, Munich 

• 9 Oct – Resilience & Sovereignty Roundtable, Stockholm 

• 13 Nov – IT Cost Take-out Roundtable, Munich 

Cloud training 

• 7-8 Oct– Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (Virtual). Register here. 

• 7-9 Oct – Security Engineering on AWS (Virtual). Register here. 

• 14-16 Oct – DevOps Engineering on AWS (Virtual). Register here. 

• 14 Oct – AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials (Virtual). Register here. 

• 15 Oct – Generative AI Essentials on AWS (Virtual). Register here. 

• 21-23 Oct – Architecting on AWS (Virtual). Register here. 

• 27 Oct – AWS Technical Essentials (Virtual). Register here. 

• 28-30 Oct – Machine Learning Ops Engineering on AWS (Virtual). Register here. 

• 10-12 Nov – Security Engineering on AWS (Virtual). Register here. 

• 11-13 Nov – Cloud Operations on AWS (Virtual). Register here. 

• 17 Nov – AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials (Virtual). Register here. 

• 18-20 Nov – Advanced Architecting on AWS (Virtual). Register here. 

• 19-20 Nov – Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (Virtual). Register here. 

• 24 Nov – AWS Technical Essentials (Virtual). Register here. 

• 25-27 Nov – Architecting on AWS (Virtual). Register here. 

• 8 Dec – Agentic AI Foundation AWS (Virtual). Register here. 

🎧 Something to listen to in the home office 

Halloween stuff is appearing in shops, so here’s a playlist to get you in the mood. When Michael Jackson meets Ghostbusters, you can't help but dance in your seat (or at your standing desk) 🕺. 

See you next time! 

PS – Did you miss the last newsletter? We shared an EU AI Act compliance checklist. And before that, we looked at some fant-AI-stic examples of AI use.