> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://openrouter.ai/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Sovereign AI

> Keep AI workloads within national and regional boundaries

Sovereign AI refers to a nation's or region's ability to develop, deploy, and control artificial intelligence systems within its own borders, using local infrastructure and under local regulatory frameworks. As AI becomes critical infrastructure, governments and enterprises increasingly require that AI workloads (including the data they process) remain within specific geographic and jurisdictional boundaries.

OpenRouter offers fully in-region routing in the EU and the US for enterprise customers. [Contact our enterprise team](https://openrouter.ai/enterprise/form) to enable it for your account.

## Drivers of sovereign AI

Sovereign AI is driven by two converging forces:

### Regulatory Compliance

Regulations like the EU AI Act, GDPR, and sector-specific rules (healthcare, finance, defense) impose strict requirements on where data can be processed and stored. Organizations operating across jurisdictions need infrastructure that respects these boundaries.

### Data Residency and Privacy

Sensitive data (whether personal, financial, or classified) may not legally or ethically leave a particular jurisdiction. Sovereign AI ensures that prompts and completions are processed entirely within a designated region, with no cross-border data transfers.

## How OpenRouter Enables Sovereign AI

OpenRouter provides several features that enable sovereign AI deployments today, allowing enterprises to maintain control over where their AI workloads are processed.

### In-Region Routing

For enterprise customers, OpenRouter supports in-region routing in the EU and the US. When enabled, your requests are guaranteed to only be decrypted within the designated region, and are only routed to providers operating in that region. This means prompts and completions are processed entirely within that region. They never leave it at any point in the request lifecycle.

To use in-region routing, send API requests through the region-specific base URL:

```lines theme={null}
https://eu.openrouter.ai
https://us.openrouter.ai
```

<CodeGroup>
  ```typescript title="TypeScript SDK" lines theme={null}
  import { OpenRouter } from '@openrouter/sdk';

  const openRouter = new OpenRouter({
    apiKey: '<OPENROUTER_API_KEY>',
    serverURL: 'https://eu.openrouter.ai/api/v1',
  });

  const completion = await openRouter.chat.send({
    model: 'meta-llama/llama-3.3-70b-instruct',
    messages: [{ role: 'user', content: 'Hello' }],
    stream: false,
  });
  ```

  ```typescript title="TypeScript (fetch)" lines theme={null}
  fetch('https://eu.openrouter.ai/api/v1/chat/completions', {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: {
      'Authorization': 'Bearer <OPENROUTER_API_KEY>',
      'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({
      model: 'meta-llama/llama-3.3-70b-instruct',
      messages: [{ role: 'user', content: 'Hello' }],
    }),
  });
  ```

  ```python title="Python" lines theme={null}
  import requests

  headers = {
    'Authorization': 'Bearer <OPENROUTER_API_KEY>',
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
  }

  response = requests.post('https://eu.openrouter.ai/api/v1/chat/completions', headers=headers, json={
    'model': 'meta-llama/llama-3.3-70b-instruct',
    'messages': [{ 'role': 'user', 'content': 'Hello' }],
  })
  ```

  ```bash title="cURL" lines theme={null}
  curl https://eu.openrouter.ai/api/v1/chat/completions \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer <OPENROUTER_API_KEY>" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d '{
      "model": "meta-llama/llama-3.3-70b-instruct",
      "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}]
    }'
  ```
</CodeGroup>

<Info>
  **In-region models list**

  To see which models are available for in-region routing, you can:

  * Call [`/api/v1/models`](https://eu.openrouter.ai/api/v1/models) through the EU domain to get the full list programmatically, or pass a `region` query parameter (`eu` or `us`) on the main domain
  * Browse [EU-eligible models](https://openrouter.ai/models?region=eu) or [US-eligible models](https://openrouter.ai/models?region=us) on the models page with the **In-Region Routing** filter
</Info>

In-region routing (EU or US) is available for enterprise customers by request. [Contact our enterprise team](https://openrouter.ai/enterprise/form) to enable it for your account.

### Zero Data Retention (ZDR)

[Zero Data Retention](/docs/guides/features/zdr) ensures that providers do not store your prompts or responses. This is a key component of sovereign AI, as it guarantees that no data persists outside your control after a request completes.

ZDR can be enforced per model group (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, SpaceXAI, and non-frontier) in your [privacy settings](https://openrouter.ai/settings/privacy), via [guardrails](/docs/guides/features/guardrails), or per-request:

```json lines theme={null}
{
  "model": "meta-llama/llama-3.3-70b-instruct",
  "messages": [{ "role": "user", "content": "Hello" }],
  "provider": {
    "zdr": true
  }
}
```

### Data Collection Controls

Control whether providers can collect your data with the `data_collection` parameter:

```json lines theme={null}
{
  "provider": {
    "data_collection": "deny"
  }
}
```

When set to `"deny"`, your requests are only routed to providers that do not collect user data. This can also be configured as an account-wide default in your [privacy settings](https://openrouter.ai/settings/privacy).

## Building a Sovereign AI Stack with OpenRouter

Combining these features, you can build a fully sovereign AI deployment:

1. **Enable in-region routing** to keep all data within the EU or the US
2. **Enforce ZDR** to prevent any data retention by providers
3. **Deny data collection** to prevent training on your data

This gives you a single API with unified billing while maintaining full control over data residency, privacy, and compliance, without the complexity of managing relationships with individual providers in each region.

## Getting Started

Sovereign AI features are available to all OpenRouter users, with in-region routing (EU or US) available for enterprise customers. To get started:

* [Create an API key](https://openrouter.ai/settings/keys) and start using [provider routing](/docs/guides/routing/provider-selection) to control where your requests are processed
* Enable [ZDR](/docs/guides/features/zdr) and [data collection controls](/docs/guides/privacy/provider-logging) for privacy compliance
* [Contact our enterprise team](https://openrouter.ai/enterprise/form) to enable in-region routing and discuss additional sovereign AI requirements

For a complete enterprise setup guide, see the [Enterprise Quickstart](/docs/cookbook/get-started/enterprise-quickstart).