Microsoft has announced that it will introduce in-country data processing for its artificial intelligence (AI) tool, Microsoft 365 Copilot, across 15 nations, including India, by 2026. The initiative is aimed at improving data sovereignty and meeting regulatory compliance requirements in key markets.
According to a company blog, users in India, Australia, Japan, and the United Kingdom will be able to process Copilot interactions within their national boundaries by the end of 2025. The move is intended to support government agencies and highly regulated sectors by ensuring that user data is both processed and stored domestically.
Further, with in-country processing, Copilot interactions including prompts and responses executed through Azure OpenAI models will be managed locally in standard operations via Microsoft’s regional data centres. The company noted that this step builds on its existing data residency offerings. At present, Microsoft provides in-country data residency for Microsoft 365 and Copilot in 27 countries, and in-region data residency and processing for nations under the European Union Data Boundary.
