IBM announced IBM Sovereign Core, the industry’s first AI-ready sovereign-enabled software. Gartner predicts 75% of enterprises will need a digital sovereignty strategy by 2030, often a sovereign cloud strategy. This software is purpose-built to give organizations complete operational authority over their AI-ready environments.
IBM Sovereign Core Addresses Digital Sovereignty Imperative
IBM Sovereign Core is designed to give organizations verifiable control over their technological environments, extending beyond simply where data is stored. The software establishes sovereignty as a core property, enabling full operational authority over deployments, configurations, and system operations—all without external vendor intervention. Key to this control is maintaining identity, encryption keys, and access management within defined jurisdictional boundaries, offering a new level of data protection. This solution facilitates governed AI inference through local processing and traceability, while also providing automated compliance reporting and audit trails.
Organizations can deploy Sovereign Core across various environments—on-premises, regional cloud infrastructure, or through service providers like Cegeka and Computacenter—allowing for scalable and flexible isolated environments. IBM anticipates a tech preview starting in February, with general availability expected mid-year 2026, and is already collaborating with partners to offer sovereign services.
Red Hat Foundation Enables Customer-Controlled Environments
IBM Sovereign Core is built on the Red Hat open source foundation, providing a base for deploying cloud-native and AI workloads with customer control. This software differs from typical approaches by establishing sovereignty as an inherent property, rather than layering controls onto existing systems. Organizations benefit from a customer-operated control plane, maintaining authority over system configurations and deployment decisions without external vendor intervention. The solution enables in-boundary identity and key management, ensuring authentication, encryption, and access remain within jurisdictional limits under direct customer control.
Furthermore, Sovereign Core offers comprehensive operational data and audit trails, generating evidence of continuous compliance—a critical feature as AI deployment accelerates and regulatory scrutiny increases. This allows organizations to establish isolated, multitenant environments quickly, selecting preferred hardware and infrastructure.
Gartner® predicts that more than 75% of all enterprises will have a digital sovereignty strategy by 2030, often sovereign cloud strategies 1 .
Gartner
Verifiable Sovereignty Through In-Boundary Data & Operations
IBM Sovereign Core establishes verifiable sovereignty by keeping critical elements within defined jurisdictional boundaries. Specifically, authentication, authorization, and encryption keys are all managed locally, preventing data from crossing borders unnecessarily. This in-boundary approach extends to AI inference, where model deployment, execution, and agent operations happen under local governance – all contributing to demonstrable control. This goes beyond simply where data resides, addressing who controls the technology and operations—a critical point for regulators, as emphasized by industry analysts. Deployments are designed for speed, allowing organizations to create isolated, multitenant environments within days, utilizing existing on-premises infrastructure or supported regional cloud options.
Cegeka & Computacenter Partnerships Expand Sovereign AI Deployment
Cegeka and Computacenter are key partners in expanding the deployment of IBM Sovereign Core, a new software designed for sovereign AI environments. These collaborations will enable local operational independence and compliance management for clients, particularly in Europe, beginning with deployments in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. By utilizing these IT Service Providers, organizations can access differentiated sovereign services tailored to prepare for and manage AI-scale workloads within specific jurisdictional boundaries. These partnerships allow Cegeka and Computacenter to offer pre-architected solutions, reducing the time and effort needed to validate sovereignty controls.
Specifically, Computacenter notes they can now accelerate time-to-value for clients, even those who previously couldn’t consider AI solutions. Cegeka highlights the software’s ability to keep sensitive data within compliant boundaries, addressing increasingly complex regulatory requirements for their clients.
