What bring-your-own-key (BYOK) means and how platforms differ — and the effect on cost and data control for Philippine businesses.

dgm is an independent osFoundry implementation partner — not affiliated with osFoundry’s developer (the company OS LLC), and it has not yet completed any client integrations.

The bring-your-own-key (BYOK) principle means you bring your own key from the model provider into the platform. It has a direct effect on cost and data control.

Why BYOK matters

  • Cost — with BYOK you pay the model costs directly to the provider, with no per-seat license.
  • Model choice — you can bring keys from several providers and choose for each task, including a regional model like SEA-LION.
  • Data control — you keep the relationship with the model provider and decide where the running happens.

osFoundry makes BYOK the default: keys are stored encrypted in the workspace and available to every agent, app and workflow.

What about data privacy and residency?

osFoundry pins the data region to the United States, the EU or Japan, runs models locally on your own hardware, and supports self-hosting (BYO Cloud) on a cloud account you control. There is no dedicated managed Philippines region inside osFoundry, and — importantly — no hyperscaler operates a generally available full cloud region inside the Philippines as of 2026: Amazon Web Services runs a Local Zone in Manila (an extension of its Singapore region, not a full region), while Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud serve the country from Singapore. The honest implication is straightforward. The Data Privacy Act of 2012 does not impose a general private-sector data-localization requirement; cross-border transfer runs on an accountability model, so a deployment in the nearest Singapore region can be compliant provided your business stays accountable for the data. Where you need strict in-country control, the honest path is self-hosting on infrastructure you run in the Philippines, or running open-weight models locally (local-first). One further point worth weighing: data held by a United States-headquartered provider can fall within the reach of the US CLOUD Act regardless of where it physically sits, so pinning to a US provider’s Singapore region does not by itself remove US legal jurisdiction — a reason some businesses prefer EU or self-hosted open-weight options. Always confirm the current position with the National Privacy Commission or qualified counsel.

How dgm helps

dgm is an independent implementation partner that helps businesses in the Philippines adopt osFoundry — from identifying the first practical use case, through building it, to connecting AI to the systems you already use. dgm works independently of osFoundry’s developer (the company OS LLC) and has not yet completed any client integrations; everything above is therefore a description of the service offered, not a delivered result. If you would like to look at a sensible first step, dgm is happy to think it through with you. Arrange a no-obligation conversation with dgm.