IBM is introducing 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.
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, IBM said.
"Businesses are facing growing pressure to innovate while meeting tightening regulatory requirements and recognizing the importance of controlling how sensitive data and AI workloads are accessed and operated," said Priya Srinivasan, general manager, IBM Software Products. "This shift is creating an urgent need for sovereign solutions that deliver AI-ready environments. With IBM Sovereign Core, we are helping clients move faster and with confidence— combining openness, compliance, and operational autonomy to meet the demands of the AI era, without the need to sacrifice sovereignty requirements."
IBM Sovereign Core will help customers achieve verifiable sovereignty and full operational control.
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
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.
These partnerships allow local operational independence and compliance management, while enabling IT Service Providers to offer differentiated sovereign services to enterprises preparing for and running AI-scale workloads, IBM said.
Starting in February, IBM Sovereign Core will be available in tech preview, with full general availability planned for mid-year 2026. At general availability, additional capabilities will be introduced.
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