Azerbaijan is taking control of its digital future. AzInTelecom, part of the national Transport and Communications Holding, has introduced a new cloud platform called AzInCloud. They teamed up with a European tech company, Gcore, to make this happen. This isn’t just about adding another cloud service; it’s about becoming independent with their data and technology while increasing their influence in the South Caucasus region.

AzInCloud is now operational, providing cloud services that comply with local data rules. This is crucial for addressing the challenge of improving digital capabilities without losing control of important information to foreign countries. And it’s more than symbolic. AzInCloud delivers secure, low-latency infrastructure to businesses, government institutions, and entrepreneurs alike—backed by Gcore’s vast network of edge nodes and cloud locations worldwide.

The public cloud model is pay-as-you-use and designed to serve everyone—individual developers and large agencies. It provides core cloud services such as real-time analytics, multi-OS capability, simple-to-use dashboards, and a services marketplace. But it is not the same in that it aims to ensure foreign platforms do not dominate Azerbaijan’s digital advancement.

Gcore’s CEO Andre Reitenbach minced no words in describing digital sovereignty as “a strategic imperative.” AzInTelecom’s Farrukh Farajullayev said something similar, pointing out how important it is to create infrastructure that reflects the values and aspirations of the country.

This isn’t a business transaction—it’s a foundational transformation. By bringing cloud technology into alignment with national interests, Azerbaijan is part of a global chorus of nations reconsidering their role in the digital supply chain. For a region that has been viewed for decades through the prism of pipelines and geopolitics, to emerge as a player in data infrastructure is to represent something different: a future not just written in code, but in self-determination.