Sovereign AI: Why Telcos Must Regain Control to Innovate

The telco industry is currently navigating a period of intense strategic risk. While the promise of an AI-driven revolution—delivering efficiency, optimization, and new revenue streams—is compelling, the geopolitical dependencies created by relying on vendors who might be subject to external legal audits.

The core mandate for the CIO and CTO is simple: Innovate with AI while putting in place robust Digital Sovereignty.

This urgency is rooted in the strategic environment. As the OpenInfra Foundation recently noted, the issue of digital sovereignty is at an “all-time-high in Europe,” driven by tightening regulation and geopolitical tension. SUSE is uniquely positioned to address this duality, enabling powerful AI innovation while helping you to strengthensovereign control over your most critical data and infrastructure.

Strategic Moves: Telco Leaders are Investing

The strategic pivot  towards a more sovereign infrastructure is already underway, moving beyond discussion into major capital investment across the sector. Telco leaders are recognizing that high-performance AI and network control must be built upon a foundation of guaranteed independence:

• AI Compute & Sovereignty: Deutsche Telekom and NVIDIA have committed to a €1 billion Industrial AI Cloud in Munich. The explicit goal? To boost Germany’s digital sovereignty. This initiative firmly links massive AI computing performance with the necessity of national digital control.
• Network Control: Vodafone’s strategic moves are similar. Their SatCo joint venture is basing its European Satellite Operations Centre in Germany with a crucial ‘command switch’ feature. They explicitly brand this a “sovereign satellite solution” to ensure European oversight and security for connectivity.

Trust and Control: Why Provenance Matters

For Telcos, the choice of platform is a strategic decision that determines the future of their digital control. SUSE is the trusted, independent partner of telcos like Orange and Deutsche Telecom because our solutions provide essential building blocks for sovereignty.

SUSE’s involvement in key European initiatives like Project Sylva, focuses on delivering a unified, secure cloud stack for telco and edge use cases, further underlines our role as a trusted partner in enabling digital independence.

CIOs must carefully consider the provenance of their IT providers and the potential for external legal influence. Founded in Germany with HQ in Luxembourg, our European heritage and operational strength are critical for trust and security. 

Our 100% commitment to open source eliminates vendor lock-in, providing the transparency, auditability, and ultimate control required for mission-critical infrastructure. With our solutions, telcos retain ownership of their digital destiny. As an independently owned company, our focus is purely on enabling your infrastructure for AI Innovation.