IBM has announced IBM Sovereign Core, software designed to help enterprises, governments, and service providers build, deploy, and manage artificial intelligence (AI)-ready sovereign technology environments.
Organizations are facing increased pressure to control their technology infrastructure due to stricter regulations and the need for transparent governance. Many companies and public institutions are also exploring AI deployments, which raise concerns about data ownership, system control, and legal jurisdiction.
Digital sovereignty refers to more than where data is stored. It includes who operates the technology environment, how data is accessed and governed, where workloads run, and which jurisdiction oversees AI models. Many organizations still lack systems that allow them to modernize and transfer applications under full sovereign control while ensuring ongoing compliance.
Research firm Gartner predicts that more than 75% of enterprises will have a digital sovereignty strategy by 2030, often through sovereign cloud programs.
“Across ASEAN, organizations are under growing pressure to scale AI while meeting increasingly complex regulatory and data-sovereignty requirements,” said Catherine Lian, general manager and technology leader, IBM ASEAN. “Businesses need greater control over how sensitive data and AI workloads are accessed and operated. This is driving urgent demand for sovereign, AI-ready environments.”
IBM Sovereign Core is built on Red Hat’s open-source foundation and is designed to give organizations full operational authority over their cloud-native and AI workloads within selected jurisdictions. The software integrates sovereignty controls into its core system instead of adding them later.
The platform allows organizations to operate their own control plane, enabling them to manage deployments, configurations, and operations without relying on vendors outside their region. It also keeps authentication systems, encryption keys, and access management within local jurisdiction boundaries.
IBM Sovereign Core generates compliance reports and audit trails within the sovereign environment. It also supports AI model deployment and inference using local graphics processing unit clusters, allowing organizations to run AI workloads under local governance while keeping data inside the region.
The software is designed to allow organizations to set up isolated environments with built-in multitenancy features within days. It also supports different hardware and infrastructure options.
Organizations can deploy IBM Sovereign Core in on-premises data centers, in-region cloud infrastructure, or through IT service providers. IBM is working with service providers globally, starting with Cegeka in Belgium and the Netherlands and Computacenter in Germany, to support sovereign service offerings for enterprises preparing to deploy large-scale AI workloads.