Over the past year, digital sovereignty has evolved from a regulatory issue to become a key priority for executive directorates and even heads of state, as governments now consider digital infrastructure as a pillar of national resilience. New AI regulations are forcing organizations to take a closer look at where their data is processed, governed and controlled. The conclusion is clear: digital sovereignty matters, but not all sovereignty is equal.
Too many approaches treat sovereignty as something that can be added after the fact, through layers of policies or point solutions layered on top of infrastructures that were never designed for disconnected or highly regulated environments.
Many so-called “sovereign systems” are legacy solutions with little innovation, built from a patchwork of vendors or based on closed public clouds later adapted to meet security and sovereignty requirements. Instead, we believe that “sovereign by design” systems should represent:
– Data sovereignty and operations controls applied to the network, compute and storage foundation, not added later
– Enduring control over the operation of data and systems, regardless of geography, connectivity or geopolitical uncertainty
– IT infrastructure designed specifically to operate in isolated or disconnected environments, leveraging AIOps and modern cloud capabilities with integrated security, compliance and data residency
This is what we mean by sovereignty by design. And it is the standard that we believe modern IT infrastructure must meet.
Digital sovereignty from edge to cloud
Although it is impossible to anticipate geopolitical changes, HPE did anticipate the value of private infrastructure and data when launching GreenLake in 2017. We understood that organizations need to control their data and modernize the way on-premises solutions are deployed and consumed. Since then, our focus has been on delivering cloud-like experiences and innovation capabilities in private and hybrid cloud environments.
Nearly a decade later, HPE leads in “sovereign by design” solutions with deployment flexibility, innovation and control through GreenLake. We’ve applied this approach across all critical elements—network, compute, storage, and GreenLake cloud—to maximize control and security as part of the industry’s most comprehensive edge-to-cloud digital sovereignty capabilities.
In recent months, HPE has introduced multiple solutions that preserve full data sovereignty and operational autonomy in isolated environments, meeting current requirements:
· Private cloud. HPE has built isolated deployments into HPE Private Cloud Enterprise and HPE Private Cloud AI. With HPE Private Cloud AI, enterprises can deploy an isolated, sovereign AI system designed to rapidly prototype, integrate, and deploy training and inference workloads. Private Cloud Enterprise offers similar benefits for more traditional and sensitive enterprise workloads.
· Sovereign AI factories. For high-security, nationwide AI initiatives, the sovereign HPE AI Factory meets the most demanding system scale and hardening requirements, with HPC infrastructures and rack-level systems that incorporate custom hardening, secure supply chain, and certification testing. In Grenoble, France, HPE and NVIDIA are creating an EU AI lab that will validate and test performance on infrastructure located and operated within the European Union.
· Networking and data storage. In these areas, HPE has significantly strengthened its sovereignty-ready offering with the launch of HPE Aruba Networking Central On-Premises 3.0 and HPE Alletra Storage MP Disconnected. Both solutions offer AI in isolated (air-gapped) environments and cloud-native management and control planes, designed for secure government, defense and enterprise IT infrastructures.
These examples integrate cloud-native microservices, advanced orchestration, execution environments, AI-optimized data storage, inference capabilities, and GPUs, all with multi-layer security designs, built specifically to operate without dependency on external connectivity.
Global clients with sovereignty requirements
With these advancements, HPE’s “sovereign by design” solutions have quickly gained traction and interest in organizations seeking to innovate while maintaining high standards of digital sovereignty and compliance.
· Sovereign AI factories in action. Customers like Carbon3.ai (UK) and the University of Utah (US) are driving big AI initiatives with HPE. Both use sovereign AI factory solutions for data processing and analysis. Specifically, Carbon3.ai uses HPE Private Cloud AI to help prototype and drive AI adoption in UK businesses, incorporating country-specific regulatory requirements.
HPE has begun extensive deployments of private hyperconverged systems and network and storage infrastructures in isolated environments
· Sovereign clouds for countries. Last November, the US Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) chose GreenLake to modernize its digital and AI platform services. HPE will provide a secure, NIST-compliant private cloud environment with isolated on-premises management through HPE Private Cloud Enterprise. This deployment guarantees both the residency of the data and its actual ownership.
Additionally, HPE has begun extensive deployments of private hyperconverged systems and sandboxed network and storage infrastructures in the Americas, EU, UK, Middle East and Asia. There is strong interest from research universities, highly regulated financial institutions, large technology companies with R&D operations and significant intellectual property assets, as well as the global defense sector.
Boost sovereign choice with fewer compromises
Leaders from around the world discuss how to cooperate in a more complex world, drive growth and scale innovation responsibly. The answer to all this involves AI.
As AI innovation accelerates, privacy regulations tighten, and the geopolitical context evolves, organizations are realizing that true data ownership and operational sovereignty are inseparable from
agility and modern innovation. The days of giving up capabilities in the name of compliance are over.
Today’s leaders demand a next-generation, cloud-agile private IT infrastructure designed for governance, compliance, and advanced AI and cloud-native capabilities.
