AWS, SUSE, and SAP: The New Sovereign Stack for Europe’s Regulated Industries

European CIOs in highly regulated sectors such as the public sector, healthcare, and finance have faced the dilemma of either moving to the public cloud to innovate or staying on-premises to comply with strict data sovereignty laws.

That dilemma effectively ended in January 2026 with the launch of AWS European Sovereign Cloud, backed by immediate support from SUSE and SAP. This collaboration highlights the emergence of a Sovereign Stack that allows European organizations to modernize their ERP landscapes without compromising on jurisdictional control.

A Physically Separate Cloud

On January 14, AWS announced the general availability of its European Sovereign Cloud, with its first region, Brandenburg, Germany, now live. Unlike previous sovereign offerings, this cloud is physically and logically separate from existing AWS Regions. It is operated exclusively by EU residents, has independent billing and identity systems, and ensures that metadata—not just customer data—never leaves the European Union.

Noting the urgency of this launch, Stéphane Israël, Managing Director of the AWS European Sovereign Cloud, said, “Europe needs access to the most robust cloud and AI technology. The expansion of AWS innovation across Europe will help supercharge customers’ growth and AI ambitions. Customers want the best of both worlds – they want to be able to use AWS’s full portfolio of cloud and AI services while ensuring they can meet their stringent sovereignty requirements.”​

AWS + SUSE + SAP

Still, infrastructure alone doesn’t run a business; applications do. This is where AWS’s collaboration with SAP and SUSE becomes critical.

SUSE has stepped in as a launch partner, making SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) for SAP Applications immediately available on this new cloud via the AWS Marketplace. This is a vital bridge. Since the vast majority of SAP HANA implementations run on SUSE, this certification ensures that the Sovereign Cloud is ready for mission-critical SAP workloads from Day 1.

SUSE aligns legal and operational frameworks in digital sovereignty. By leveraging a pure Open Source foundation, SUSE eliminates supply chain risks and ensures total technology independence. With CC/EAL4+ certification, the highest level possible for open-source security, SUSE grants organizations complete autonomy over their security operations. This simplifies compliance with GDPR, NIS2, and DORA while stripping away risky non-EU dependencies. Furthermore, SLES for SAP 16 introduces Reproducible Builds, providing the transparent auditability and independent verification required for mission-critical enterprise environments.

SAP has also confirmed its role, with Martin Merz, President of Sovereign Cloud at SAP, noting that this launch allows organizations to “run mission-critical workloads and apply AI securely, under European governance”.

Why This Matters Now

The timing is not accidental. Reports predict that by 2028, 60% of organizations with digital sovereignty requirements will migrate sensitive workloads to new environments to mitigate geopolitical risk.

For SAP customers, this collaboration removes the biggest excuse for delaying SAP S/4HANA migrations in regulated industries. They no longer need to build a private data center to be compliant. Still, they can now deploy a Clean Core SAP S/4HANA environment on AWS, leveraging the agility of the public cloud (including AWS’s generative AI services like Amazon Bedrock, which are also available in this sovereign region), while retaining the data residency guarantees of an on-premises bunker. ​

Thus, this collaboration isn’t just about compliance; it’s about finally allowing Europe’s most cautious industries to innovate at the same speed as the rest of the world.

What This Means for SAPinsiders

The trade-off between compliance and innovation is a thing of the past. Organizations must stop treating sovereignty as a barrier to modernization. They can now access AWS’s full suite of cloud-native services within a strictly geofenced environment. Therefore, teams can finally build AI-driven extensions, such as automated fraud detection in finance or patient record analysis in healthcare, that sit directly next to the core SAP data, without that data ever leaving the EU or being accessible to non-EU personnel.

Operational resilience can now be deployed with one click. Building high-availability (HA) clusters for SAP HANA on-premise requires significant hardware investment and specialized Linux expertise. SAPinsiders should leverage the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) for SAP Applications availability in the AWS Marketplace. This allows them to deploy pre-configured, validated HA environments that include features like Live Patching (critical for 24/7 uptime) and automated system replication. By procuring this through the marketplace, organizations shift operating system management from a capital-intensive build project to a flexible OpEx model.

Use sovereignty as a catalyst for Clean Core. Many regulated entities are sitting on heavily customized, legacy SAP ECC systems because the perceived risk of moving them was too high. Organizations should treat migration to the AWS European Sovereign Cloud as a selective data transition opportunity. By doing this, organizations can migrate only their active, relevant data to a fresh SAP S/4HANA instance running on this new infrastructure. This leaves technical debt behind while ensuring that the new Clean Core is born compliant, secure, and ready for future upgrades.