If you want data to stay in Belgium for generative AI applications, this is now possible with Google Cloud. The cloud provider wants to give organizations more control over their data.

Google Cloud announces new “data residency” guarantees. This means that as a customer you can choose where data at rest is stored. The offer is specifically for customers who subscribe to Google’s generative AI services. Belgium is one of the residences on offer.

Control over data

The demand for enterprise-grade generative AI services is increasing worldwide. This emerges from a study that Dell published today. Three out of four companies want to invest more in generative AI in the next year. However, there are also barriers to adoption, the most common being data management.

Companies operating within the European Union are subject to European data protection regulations. Certain sectors, such as government or finance, often have even stricter restrictions on where and how data can be stored. With this new service, Google wants to give customers a guarantee that all data is stored in a location approved by the customer.

residence

The offer is valid for the following applications, the available data residences within Europe are indicated in brackets:

• Vertex AI (Netherlands, France, United Kingdom, Germany and Belgium)
• Vertex AI Search (European Union, multiple regions)
• Vertex AI Conversation (European Union, Multiple Regions)