IBM (NYSE: IBM) has announced IBM Sovereign Core, the industry’s first AI-ready sovereign-enabled software for enterprises, governments, and service providers to build, deploy, and manage AI-ready sovereign environments. Organizations around the world are facing a growing imperative to exercise control over their technology infrastructure. Driven by evolving regulatory requirements and the need for auditable governance, enterprises and governments are seeking self-managed environments where they maintain complete operational authority, particularly as they deploy AI workloads that amplify sovereignty concerns. Digital sovereignty goes beyond data residency. It encompasses who operates and controls the technology environment, how data is accessed and governed, where workloads execute, and under whose jurisdiction AI models run. Yet most organizations lack a destination to land, modernize, and re-host applications under sovereign control, including applications that will incorporate AI capabilities and have continuous compliance reporting capabilities. “Gartner® predicts that more than 75% of all enterprises will have a digital sovereignty strategy by 2030, often sovereign cloud strategies.”
“As AI adoption accelerates in India, businesses will need to innovate while meeting tightening regulatory requirements and controlling sensitive data and AI workloads,” said Sandip Patel, Managing Director, IBM India & South Asia. “IBM Sovereign Core offers an AI-ready sovereign stack, providing organizations with control, ensuring compliance and operational autonomy.” Sovereign Core is purpose-built software to build, deploy, and manage cloud-native and AI workloads under an organization’s own authority, within chosen jurisdictions, built on Red Hat’s open source foundation. Organizations can gain: Customer-operated control plane, In-boundary identity and keys, Ongoing compliance enablement and generated evidence of continuous compliance, Governed AI inference, Ease of deployment. “The sovereign AI conversation has focused on data residency, but that’s only part of the equation,” said Sanjeev Mohan, Principal, SanjMo. “AI is accelerating the pace at which sovereignty questions move from theory to daily operations,” said Erik Fish, Director of Geotechnology at Eurasia Group. Customers can deploy IBM Sovereign Core in the environment of their choice—whether in on-premises data centers, supported in-region cloud infrastructure or through IT Service Providers. IBM is collaborating with IT Service Providers globally, starting with an initial rollout in Europe with Cegeka in Belgium and the Netherlands and Computacenter in Germany.
Gaetan Willems, VP Cloud & Digital Platforms, Cegeka, said, “Partnering with IBM to offer a pre-architected solution through our in-country environment enables us to deliver enterprise-ready software to our clients, while allowing them to address local compliance standards.” “With IBM Sovereign Core, we can focus on configuring the software to each client’s specific use cases rather than spending months piecing together disparate components and validating sovereignty controls,” said Christian Schreiner, Unit Director Cloud, Computacenter. Starting in February, IBM Sovereign Core will be available in tech preview, with full general availability planned for mid-year 2026. At GA, additional capabilities will be introduced. To learn more about IBM Sovereign Core, read our blog, and join us virtually for the IBM Tech Summit, January 27. “Businesses are facing growing pressure to innovate while meeting tightening regulatory requirements and recognizing the importance of controlli…