Announcing SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16 General Availability: The First Enterprise Linux with Built-in Agentic AI

Today, we are thrilled to announce the general availability of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 16, a landmark release that redefines enterprise Linux. This isn’t just an update, it’s a new foundation for the next decade of IT.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16 is the industry’s first enterprise Linux to integrate a built-in framework for Agentic AI, designed to transform how you manage infrastructure, reduce operational costs, and accelerate time to market. It delivers deeper visibility, automated management, and streamlined operations — all on the secure, stable, and open foundation you expect from SUSE.

Introducing the agentic AI assisted infrastructure

With SUSE Linux 16, SUSE introduces Agentic AI directly into the infrastructure layer, marking the beginning of a series of technology previews that will extend AI capabilities across SUSE Multi-Linux Manager, Trento for SAP environments, and SUSE Cloud Native solutions. This release establishes the foundation for secure, AI-driven management of Linux infrastructure at scale, ensuring a Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) approach to operations.

It’s a pioneering implementation of the open Model Context Protocol (MCP) standard, which gives enterprises a secure and extensible way to connect AI models to your existing tools and data sources. With key components available today as a tech preview, the AI Controller creates the foundation for embedding intelligence directly into the operating system.

This enables AI-powered administration through a simplified natural language interface, helping automate tasks and dramatically reduce operational overhead.

True to SUSE’s open strategy, the SUSE Linux AI implementation is designed for openness. The SUSE Linux AI Controller preserves your freedom of choice, allowing you to connect to any Large Language Model (LLM) provider, with no vendor lock-in.

Innovation and Stability: The Best of Both Worlds

You shouldn’t have to choose between innovation and stability — and with SLES 16, you don’t. SUSE Linux 16 delivers both. As Rick Spencer, GM of Business Critical Linux at SUSE, puts it:

“Today, every CIO and CTO needs to leverage AI to get more out of existing infrastructure, and this cannot come at the cost of being locked into a single ecosystem. Using AI with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16, IT leaders can drive operational efficiency without having to hire new teams or build a custom toolchain. SUSE is the first to deliver a built-in, open and extensible AI infrastructure directly within an enterprise Operating System (OS). This, combined with our historic commitment to security and compliance and an industry leading 16-year lifecycle, makes SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16 the first enterprise Linux that solves for both immediate innovation and long-term stability.”

Unprecedented Stability and Control

Beyond AI, SUSE Linux 16 is built on a foundation of unprecedented stability, security, and con

trol. With a resilient-by-design architecture, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16 delivers several industry-first features that provide a rock-solid base for your mission-critical workloads.

• SLES 16 introduces a simple, extended lifecycle model: every minor release includes 2 years of general support, extendable up to 5 years, helping you minimize upgrade disruptions. With a total lifecycle of up to 16 years, SLES 16 provides one of the longest enterprise Linux support commitments in the industry, enabling the execution of long-term IT strategies with confidence and protecting your systems from disruptive, forced upgrades. It’s fully post-2038 ready, ensuring stability well beyond the Year 2038 transition and giving you confidence to plan for the decades ahead.
• De-Risk Operations with instant rollback, now by default everywhere: Administrators can instantly roll back nearly any modification, from a full system upgrade or software patch to a single configuration change. Enabled by default in our cloud images, this feature provides a surgical, OS-level recovery option that is faster and more granular than traditional VM-level snapshots.
• Reproducible builds: a first for Enterprise Linux. SLES 16 is the first enterprise Linux distribution built entirely with reproducible builds, giving customers full transparency and control. You can independently verify and even rebuild binaries from source — all while remaining fully supported by SUSE. This, combined with our comprehensive Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs), is part of a development process evaluated for the highest security certifications (EAL4+) in the Linux market.
• Industry-leading Live Patching, now included in SLES: Apply critical security updates to both the kernel and userspace libraries without service downtime or reboots for more than a year. Live Patching is now integrated into the core OS and included with your subscription, helping you maintain continuous compliance and availability.

The Full SUSE Linux Family is Here

SLES 16 leads a comprehensive launch of the entire SUSE Linux product family, with tailored solutions for every enterprise workload:

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications 16: Available today for your mission-critical SAP environments, providing a secure, high-performance foundation optimized for SAP HANA and S/4HANA.
• SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 16: Ensures maximum business continuity with automated failover and clustering to protect your most essential services from downtime.
• SUSE Linux Micro 6.2: The perfect resilient-by-design, transactional, and immutable OS for edge, embedded, and other dispersed deployments, enabling predictable, automated DevOps at scale.

Get Started Today

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16, including the SUSE AI controller, is available to all SUSE customers and partners starting today.

This release is a major step forward, combining immediate innovation with the long-term stability our customers depend on. We are building the open, extensible AI infrastructure for the future, and it all starts here.

To learn more, visit the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server website.