Key facts
| Definition | Keeping AI-processed data within a chosen geography or jurisdiction |
| Related concepts | Sovereignty is control and jurisdiction; localization is a legal mandate; residency is placement |
| Stores to pin | Inference, prompts, completions, embeddings, logs, backups and support access |
| Plugsky regions | me-central-1 (UAE), sa-central-1 (Riyadh), eu-west-1, eu-central-1, us-east-1, us-west-2, ap-southeast-1 |
| Deeper tiers | VPC, on-prem and air-gapped when placement alone is insufficient |
| Verification | Workspace configuration exports, subprocessor locations and audit samples |
| Key custody | BYOK via cloud KMS or HSM keeps revocation under your control |
| Contractual frame | Terms at /legal/terms and service commitments at /legal/sla |
TL;DR
- Residency is placement; sovereignty is control; localization is a mandate.
- Pin every store, not just inference — logs and vectors are the usual leaks.
- Failover and support access are common sources of accidental export.
- Verify with configuration exports, not with marketing pages.
- Move to VPC or on-prem when the physical data path is in scope.
How it works, step by step
- Identify the legal or contractual driver and the geography it requires.
- Map every store: inference, prompts, completions, embeddings, logs, backups, metadata.
- Select the region and pin it per workspace; export the configuration as evidence.
- Decide failover behaviour and confirm it does not cross the boundary.
- Constrain support access and log who viewed what from where.
- Review subprocessors and their processing locations against the same requirement.
- Re-verify after any platform, model or deployment change.
Try it yourself
Open the AI data residency checklist →
Residency, sovereignty and localization are not synonyms
- Residency: data is stored and processed in a chosen place. It is a placement property you can configure and verify.
- Sovereignty: control, jurisdiction and personnel also sit inside that boundary — no foreign access, keys held locally. A broader legal and operational property.
- Localization: a legal mandate to keep certain data in-country, often with sector-specific rules and audit expectations.
Buyers often ask for sovereignty and need residency, or assume a region choice satisfies a localization law. Clarify the requirement before choosing a deployment tier, because the cost difference between them is substantial.
The stores people forget
AI adds copies of data that classic applications do not have. The list that matters: prompts and completions retained for debugging; prompt and response logs; embeddings in a vector store; evaluation and fine-tuning datasets; caches; backups and DR replicas; and the metadata that ties them to users. Failover is the seventh trap — automatic rerouting can move processing to another region mid-incident. Support access is the eighth: an engineer viewing production data from outside the jurisdiction is a transfer even when nothing is copied.
How to verify a residency claim
Ask for artefacts, not adjectives: a workspace configuration export showing the pinned region; a store-by-store map; the subprocessor list with processing locations; sample audit events with region and actor; and the retention and deletion schedule. Then test one failure path — what happens during a region incident — because that is where commitments usually diverge from behaviour. Plugsky documents region pinning across UAE, Saudi (Enterprise), EU, US and APAC regions, with VPC, on-prem and air-gapped tiers for requirements that go beyond placement.
Why it matters commercially and operationally
Residency affects which deals you can sign, which regulators you can serve and how much diligence you absorb. It also shapes engineering: region selection constrains latency, failover design and data gravity, and a residency change later is far more expensive than choosing correctly at the start. Treat it as an architecture input rather than a compliance annex, document the decision rationale, and keep the evidence current. Where contractual commitments are needed, they belong in /legal/terms and /legal/sla, backed by the configuration evidence from your own workspace.
Honest comparison
| Concept | Residency | Sovereignty | Localization |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core question | Where is data stored and processed? | Who controls it, under whose law? | Does law require in-country placement? |
| Nature | Technical placement property | Legal and operational property | Regulatory mandate |
| Typical control | Region pinning per workspace | Local keys, operators and jurisdiction | Mandated in-country processing |
| Verification | Configuration exports and store maps | Key custody, personnel and operator location | Regulator audit and evidence |
| Common mistake | Pinning inference but not logs | Assuming a region equals control | Treating guidance as optional |
| Plugsky support | Region pinning plus private tiers | In-country and air-gapped deployment | Depends on the specific regime; verify region and tier |
Frequently asked questions
What is AI data residency in one sentence?
It is keeping the data an AI system touches — prompts, completions, embeddings, logs and backups — inside a chosen geography or jurisdiction, configured and evidenced rather than merely promised.
How is it different from sovereignty?
Residency is about placement; sovereignty is about control and jurisdiction, including who holds keys and who may access data. You can have sovereignty without a specific region label, or residency without full sovereignty.
Which data stores need to be pinned?
Inference, prompts and completions, embeddings and vector stores, logs, backups and evaluation datasets, plus support access and failover behaviour. Logs and vectors are the most commonly missed.
Can failover move data across borders?
It can unless you constrain it. Make permitted failover regions explicit and test the behaviour; if cross-border failover is not allowed, plan capacity inside the jurisdiction instead.
How do we verify a vendor's residency claim?
Request configuration exports, a store-by-store map, subprocessor locations, sample audit events and the retention schedule. Then test one incident scenario to confirm behaviour matches the documents.
Does residency cost more?
It can. In-region capacity, private deployment and reduced failover options all add cost. Match the tier to the actual legal driver rather than applying the strictest option to every workload.
What regions does Plugsky offer?
The docs list me-central-1 (UAE), sa-central-1 (Riyadh, Enterprise), eu-west-1, eu-central-1, us-east-1, us-west-2 and ap-southeast-1, with region pinning, VPC, on-prem and air-gapped deployment tiers.
How do we evidence deletion at termination?
Agree deletion across primary storage, logs, backups and vectors, and obtain written evidence. Test a deletion request during the pilot rather than accepting a process description.