Cowork: Add EU data residency support via hyperscaler backends (Bedrock / Vertex / Foundry)

Summary

Cowork routes all inference through Anthropic's US infrastructure with no option to configure an alternative backend. This blocks deployment in German and EU enterprise environments subject to GDPR data residency requirements.

Claude Code CLI already supports EU-resident inference via CLAUDE_CODE_USE_BEDROCK=1, CLAUDE_CODE_USE_VERTEX=1, and CLAUDE_CODE_USE_FOUNDRY=1. Cowork has no equivalent configuration.

Problem

Under GDPR Art. 44–46, many EU enterprise, public sector, and regulated-industry customers require data processing within EU territory or deployment within their own cloud tenant. Anthropic's DPA with EU SCCs does not satisfy the stricter requirements of:

• German public sector (BSI requirements, DSGVO § 25 TTDSG)
• Financial services supervised by BaFin
• Healthcare with patient data (§ 203 StGB, DSGVO Art. 9)
• Enterprises with Works Council agreements (Betriebsvereinbarungen) restricting US data transfers

These customers can use Claude Code CLI with Bedrock (eu-central-1) or Vertex (europe-west1) today — but Cowork, the product designed for non-developer knowledge workers, has no backend configuration at all.

Requested features (priority order)

Option A — Hyperscaler backend support (preferred)

Mirror CLI's existing backend config, exposed via Cowork settings or MDM policy:

{ "inferenceBackend": "bedrock", "inferenceRegion": "eu-central-1" }

Option B — Native Anthropic EU endpoint

https://api.eu.anthropic.com with EU-resident processing, configurable in Cowork.

Option C — EU data residency for Enterprise workspaces

Extend the API inference_geo option to Cowork and Claude.ai Enterprise.

Current workaround

EU teams needing compliant inference today must fall back to Claude Code CLI with a hyperscaler backend:

# AWS Bedrock (Frankfurt)
export CLAUDE_CODE_USE_BEDROCK=1
export AWS_REGION=eu-central-1
claude

# Google Vertex AI (Belgium)
export CLAUDE_CODE_USE_VERTEX=1
export CLOUD_ML_REGION=europe-west1
claude

This works but Claude Code is a developer CLI — it lacks the UI and collaboration features that make Cowork accessible to business users, making it a poor substitute for the target audience.

Impact

• EMEA is Anthropic's fastest-growing region. EU-resident inference directly unlocks enterprise and public sector revenue currently blocked.
• Cowork is the flagship product for knowledge workers — without EU data residency, the entire product category is off-limits for a large share of EU enterprise customers.
• The technical foundation exists in Claude Code CLI. This is primarily a product decision to expose it in Cowork.

Related

• #32668 — Bedrock backend support for Claude Desktop / Cowork (80+ 👍, network policy angle)
• This is a distinct regulatory issue from #32668: the blocker is data residency law, not network policy.