IBM has unveiled IBM Sovereign Core, a software product designed for enterprises, government bodies, and service providers seeking to manage AI workloads within secure and controlled technology environments.

The software aims to meet global organisations’ rising need for operational authority over their infrastructure, as regulatory landscapes continue to evolve and requirements for auditable governance grow.

IBM stated that its new solution enables customers to build, deploy, and oversee AI-ready environments under their own jurisdiction, addressing concerns over who operates and controls data as well as overall system governance.

Digital sovereignty includes not only data residency but also the administration of technology environments, access protocols, workload execution locations, and legal oversight of AI processes.

IBM Sovereign Core is built on Red Hat’s open-source software base. It offers organisations a customer-controlled operational model in which authentication, encryption keys, and access management remain entirely within specified jurisdictional boundaries.

The product is designed to generate comprehensive operational data, system telemetry, and audit trails held within these boundaries to support ongoing compliance requirements.

In addition, it allows AI model deployment and operations, such as inference execution, to take place locally with supervision and traceability, without exporting data externally.

Users can implement IBM Sovereign Core on-site in private data centres or through supported regional cloud infrastructure.

IBM software products general manager Priya Srinivasan said: “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 has begun working with IT service providers for the initial rollout in Europe, starting with Cegeka in Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as Computacenter in Germany.

These collaborations are intended to provide local operational control while supporting customers who are preparing for or running large-scale AI workloads.

Cegeka cloud and digital platforms vice president Gaetan Willems 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.”

IBM plans to make a tech preview of Sovereign Core available from February, with full general availability anticipated by mid-2026.