Sovereign clouds are gathering; these two are the first off the block

Mint

02-06-2025

India's push for a digital infrastructure isolated from global networks is fuelling a boom in sovereign cloud services, creating a multi-billion-dollar opportunity for local tech players. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Google's India unit are emerging as early movers in this arena, attracting steady interest from government agencies keen to secure sensitive data on domestic platforms.
Several government entities are already moving to these homegrown cloud solutions, four people familiar with the matter said. TCS, with its recently launched SovereignSecure Cloud, is leading the pack among Indian firms. Google's local arm is also gaining traction, offering specialized sovereign cloud platforms with its Google Distributed Cloud. Hiranandani Group firm Yotta Data Services too plans to build a sovereign cloud.
To be sure, these contracts aren't too big, though they present a large opportunity for the future. Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, an early adopter, spent ₹92 crore overall in FY25, of which around ₹30 crore was for the cloud contract, one of the officials said on the condition of anonymity.
TCS did not respond to emailed questions, but a senior executive associated with its sovereign cloud product said one of the reasons behind the product was to "capitalize on the opportunity" amid growing concerns about sovereignty and security of data.
Also read | TCS launches India-focused sovereign cloud to boost domestic revenue
"We (TCS) believe that we have a completely indigenous built cloud service offering where everything from the hardware to the software is built by an Indian company," the executive said on the condition of anonymity. "This should assure any concerns the government could have when any department or wing of the government agrees to migrate their data to the cloud."
Mitesh Agarwal, managing director for solutions and technology, Asia-Pacific at Google, confirmed that the company has already onboarded sovereign cloud clients in India. 'We provide AI models within the sovereign shores of India—for instance, we have Gemini 1.5, where the entire end-to-end data processing happens within our data centres in India itself," Agarwal said.
He added that the company makes this offering through a platform called Google Distributed Cloud, which caters to the need for completely isolated cloud storage and computing for sensitive agencies.
'Most sovereign cloud projects would amount to annual revenue of around $2-5 million. While this is not a lot, in the next five years, thousands of such projects are expected to come up from government agencies and private companies alike. This can create multi-billion-dollar revenue streams for the infrastructure providers," one of the officials cited above said on the condition of anonymity.
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Sovereign cloud refers to a digital platform based entirely within the country to store and process data, as well as run applications. From the code base to the physical data centres, everything is fully located fully in India—separating them from any accessibility from outside the country. Building such platforms was presented as an early concept about three years ago. In 2023, Monaco in Europe became the first adopter of such a platform by technology services provider VMWare. Since then, the technology has found more takers, as countries grow more protectionist.
In India, adoption is being led by government bodies. 'Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Mission is one such government project that is adopting sovereign cloud services right now. Similarly, Employees Provident Fund Organisation, Passport Seva and Aadhaar's governing body have their own projects, and they are in the process of adopting sovereign cloud into their operations right now," a second official added.
'Adopting sovereign cloud platforms is not a matter of replacing global cloud services from the US Big Tech. There are certain sensitive data requirements for which you need cloud services offered by Indian companies. This would ensure that this data is stored in India, without the risk of it being shared with other geographies by any particular party. This, however, does not mean that every cloud deployment and contract will be replaced, and hyperscalers will have enough space to provide their services to the Indian government agencies and ministries," the official said.
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