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Brad Smith: “We believe in the rule of law as a company, we believe in…”

Featuring: Brad Smith, Vice Chairman of Microsoft | National

Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility

Published April 30, 2025 | Video Starts at 14:16

So when you look at the blog online, you'll see these two paragraphs. And as you can see, we get it. We believe in the rule of law as a company, we believe in the role of European law across Europe. We always have. It's been fundamental to our ability to build a business here, a single market that would better serve customers. And I'm sure we'll talk more about this in the Q and A. (14:16–14:25)

CLAIM

Asserts Microsoft's commitment to European law and regulation.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

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Brad Smith

“We will operate 200 data centers in 16 countries across Europe.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 07:24-07:32
“We will provide [European cloud providers] with the ability to use and run Microsoft software on terms more favorable than we give to Amazon…”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 08:57-09:17
“We went to court four times against the Obama administration over the protection of customer data and privacy, including European data.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 13:01-13:13
“We have provided more than $500 million, half a billion US dollars of free technology and financial assistance to Ukraine since the war…”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 17:34-17:48
“We now have more than 1800 AI models running on Azure available to the world.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 21:23-21:31
“There is an economic theory that says you have a major financial panic on average every 70 to 80 years.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 49:10-49:18
“The Great Recession in 2008 was 79 years after the start of the Great Depression in 1929.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 49:37-49:42
“The Great Depression in 1929 was almost exactly the same amount of time before the great panic in 1857.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 49:50-50:03
“Microsoft has been in Europe even longer than I have in terms of coming here. In fact, the company first got involved more than 40 years ago…”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 04:15-04:28
“We have data centers in 16 countries.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 05:47-05:51
“Microsoft's European digital commitments. This is a moment in time when we understand that there are questions that customers have, that…”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 06:17-06:38
“The first is our commitment to continue the work that we've been on to help build a broad AI and cloud ecosystem across Europe.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 06:54-07:04
“We'll expand our data center capacity across Europe by another 40% during the next two years.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 07:04-07:25
“We have created a set of sovereign cloud data centers operating in Germany, operating in France with local partners.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 08:08-08:35
“We are committed to partnering with European cloud providers.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 08:43-08:49
“Our European data centers are managed by European companies under European law.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 11:00-11:07
“We are committing today that if any government anywhere in the world ever issues an order that seeks to compel Microsoft to suspend or cease…”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 11:34-11:55
“We will implement this as a contractual commitment by Microsoft and by Microsoft Corporation and all of its subsidiaries and in our…”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 12:30-12:48
“We went to court against the Trump administration to protect the rights of employees who are immigrants.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 13:12-13:19
“We will put in place business continuity partnerships, arrangements with European partners so they can step in, they can access our code…”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 13:34-13:50
“We're committed to respecting these laws and the role that the rule of law plays across this continent.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 14:49-15:03
“We'll continue to protect the privacy of European data.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 15:06-15:10
“We were not just an adherent, but an advocate for the GDPR, not just in Europe, but frankly, for worldwide application.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 15:30-15:39
“We pursued what we call our EU Data Boundary project, a project that we completed last year.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 15:41-15:48
“We've created a new position, a Deputy CISO for Europe, who will report directly to our CISO at our headquarters in Redmond.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 18:20-18:30
“We're committed to implementing [new European cybersecurity regulation] and complying with it as it becomes what we see as fundamentally a…”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 18:53-19:08
“We are committed to strengthening Europe's economic competitiveness, including for open source developers, open source code, open source…”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 19:22-19:37
“AI is the next great general purpose technology, a technology that will impact every part of the economy like electricity did more than a…”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 20:13-20:26
“Many of those 1800 models are open source models.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 21:43-21:48
“Many of them involve European companies and entities like Mistral and Hugging Face.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 21:48-21:55
“We are building a European cloud built in Europe to run for Europe, fundamentally to serve Europe.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 22:40-22:53
“Microsoft support for Europe always has been and always will be steadfast.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 24:13-24:21
“Our business relies on the trust of our customers.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 26:26-26:30
“We're prepared to back this up with contractual commitments.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 26:53-26:57
“What you will not find is a case that found that we failed to live up to a contractual promise.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 27:09-27:17
“We have a data privacy pledge where we pledge to go to court when there is [a blind subpoena or search warrant].”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 27:25-27:32
“We go to court and we tend to win.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 28:12-28:16
“We've got this business continuity partnership arrangement.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 28:18-28:23
“I left Seattle on Monday and flew to Washington, D.C. so I could let officials in Washington, D.C. know what I was going to say in Brussels…”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 29:55-30:07
“There were people across Europe, especially in government, who were concerned about, say, their ability to rely on American technology.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 30:14-30:24
“Microsoft, I think, needs to be a voice of reason in capitals around the world.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 31:13-31:19
“We want to provide digital stability in a time of geopolitical volatility.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 31:21-31:27
“It's often hard with competition law in particular, when technology is changing so quickly to know what the rules are going to be.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 33:33-33:45
“Expect it to take at least a decade.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 34:33-34:36
“The first part of the Microsoft case was with the Federal Trade Commission? That was in 1990. And the very last chapter of that book...was…”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 34:37-34:56
“The DMA provides clarity about the rules without having to spend a decade going to court to figure it out.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 35:10-35:20
“We have two products that are subject to [the Digital Markets Act], Microsoft Windows and the LinkedIn services.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 35:20-35:27
“We believe that this clarity [from the Digital Markets Act] is not just good for Europe, it's good for technology because it enables us to…”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 36:42-36:52
“I don't anticipate anything that would disrupt our supply [due to changes in the trade relationship].”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 37:53-38:04
“The economics of the cloud are actually easier to manage than the, say, the economics of digital devices like laptops.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 38:09-38:21
“We respect the fact that European governments will make their own decisions and we don't get a vote, but we will adapt and we'll be…”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 40:09-40:37
“The Draghi report is it recognized that you don't need to build everything yourself in order to get the benefits of it.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 40:43-40:54
“The European economy is in so many ways one of the world's greatest, maybe the world's greatest domain.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 42:26-42:37
“European leaders, companies that frankly have a much longer life and sustained track record of success than you tend to find in the United…”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 42:58-43:11
“If Europe chooses to, say, use public money to invest in data centers, that's Europe's decision to make.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 43:13-43:21
“The key to global competition is harnessing the power of AI.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 43:31-43:37
“I believe in the rule of law. I believe in the integrity and independence of the judicial system in the United States.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 45:29-45:40
“One of the quests that we've worked to nurture more than any single company really is an international agreement across the Atlantic that…”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 47:27-47:44
“The US and the UK quickly entered into such an agreement. The US and Australia entered into to an agreement.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 47:55-48:02
“We've long supported and advocated for an agreement between the US and the EU.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 48:03-48:08
“The EU really needed to get the Evidence act done in order to have its own legal basis to then I think negotiate effectively with the US.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 48:08-48:18
“We created [NATO, the Transatlantic alliance, the Bretton Woods Framework, and international monetary and financial and trade institutions].”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 51:09-51:11
“People on both sides of the Atlantic and around the world have legitimate concerns with the global economic system.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 51:23-51:34
“Business benefited, as did everyday citizens, from all of this [the global economic system] that came together.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 51:45-51:54
“There are people who've been left behind, other people who feel like they haven't benefited [from economic progress].”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 53:33-53:48
“Over the last five years, they saw the impact of inflation on their standard of living.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 53:49-53:55
“Let's make AI a force for good, for economic competitiveness and productivity growth and a tool that helps people.”
Microsoft's Brad Smith on digital resilience during geopolitical volatility | Uploaded April 30, 2025 | 54:39-54:46