In the last year I've seen a lot of statements about data and sovereignty between countries. While there have been concerns in the past, there seems to be more worry around the world with AI services primarily being run by, and hosted by, US companies. Plenty of my customers at Redgate Software have concerns over our ability to see data when we run AI models, though we don't store the data. Once the session ends, the data is discarded by policy

Recently I saw a piece about France trying to rid itself of the reliance on US technology, specifically the Windows OS from Microsoft. They are looking to move to their own version of Linux, as well as a number of open source software packages. This quote was fascinating to me: "We can no longer accept that our data, our infrastructure, and our strategic decisions depend on solutions whose rules, pricing, evolution, and risks we do not control."

With AI being added to lots of software, including OSes, I suspect that other countries might look to follow France. I know the EU is looking to move, and Brazil has been trying to use more Linux and OSS for decades. While I find Windows works well, I completely understand wanting to move, especially in this era where many software packages are web-based and can run on a different OS.

SQL Server runs on Linux, and half of my testing is on Linux, since I run SQL Server in a container on my laptop. My desktop still has a native Windows install, but I find it easy to port almost all code back and forth between the two versions. While I understand others might have a preference for PostgreSQL or MySQL or some other OSS platform, I think SQL Server provides a great value for many organizations. I also think it's incredibly hard to port your software and data from one database platform to another.

I do wonder if governments or organizations outside the US that look to leave Windows will also look to leave SQL Server. It's one thing to move away from the OS and software like Office. A little training will get most users productive on a new system in a relatively short time. Moving a software application and its database is a much larger challenge.

I expect SQL Server to remain incredibly popular for many years, and with the ability to configure the new AI capabilities to use your own models, I am not sure a country that wants to reduce their reliance on US technology will choose to do so for their databases. They will likely start elsewhere and continue to use SQL Server for years.