BT Business introduces sovereign services suite for UK connectivity

BT Business introduced a suite of sovereign services in the UK that covers connectivity, voice, cloud and AI. The update centers on keeping sensitive workloads in the UK while addressing data residency, operational governance, security and compliance requirements.

The company’s launch followed research by Assembly Research that tied concerns over data security to slower AI adoption in the UK. The research estimated that digital sovereignty could deliver £18 billion in productivity benefits, and it projected additional opportunities from UK-based data centers and sovereign cloud services.

BT said its sovereign portfolio combined sovereign connectivity and voice with sovereign cloud and sovereign AI capability, with the stated aim of improving control over data storage, access and governance. For cloud services, BT said Sovereign Cloud is a private cloud platform hosted and operated entirely within the UK, providing compute, storage and backup.

As part of the expanded portfolio, BT said it was building sovereign AI capability with Nscale and NVIDIA to deliver sovereign AI solutions in the UK. BT also launched Sovereign Cloud with support for migration, operations and ongoing compliance, and it said the platform used Rackspace Technology’s UK data centre infrastructure, with UK-based, security-cleared teams and managed services.

“Organisations, public and private, want to move fast with AI and cloud while keeping control over the sovereignty of their data. That’s why BT is the first UK provider to offer a complete sovereign portfolio – from secure connectivity and voice to sovereign cloud and AI – all delivered in one place. Only BT has the scale and infrastructure to help customers modernise critical services with confidence, delivering real benefits for organisations and for the UK as a whole.” Jon James, Chief Executive Officer of BT Business, said. “Our research shows that digital sovereignty has become a political focus across Europe and in the UK, as concerns about an over-reliance on non-sovereign digital platforms have intensified. The clear prize on offer should encourage the Government to take further steps to realise the opportunities of a wider adoption of digital sovereignty. As well as the potential economic benefits, the wider adoption of digital sovereignty promises enhanced resilience by giving organisations more control over services.” Matthew Howett, Founder and Chief Executive of Assembly Research, said.