Infrastructure
Choose an architecture for on-premises, customer-controlled private-cloud or verified air-gapped operation—using Docker-compatible containers, Kubernetes, virtual machines or another process approved by your organisation.
What sovereign AI means
Sovereign AI is control across the whole workflow.
It is not a hosting badge. It is the ability to decide where AI runs, follow where information travels and keep operational authority with the teams accountable for the service.
Three primary control layers
Sovereign AI begins with decisions your organisation can verify.
Infrastructure, information flows and operational authority must be designed together. Controlling only one leaves dependencies elsewhere in the workflow.
Data path
Know where prompts, uploads, retrieved passages, model calls, outputs, logs, exports and backups are stored or transmitted. A local deployment keeps these paths inside your boundary only when every configured provider, connector and support path does the same.
Operations
Keep identity, access, retention, audit, administration, updates, recovery and operator access with named teams. These controls can support GDPR and EU AI Act governance work; they do not create automatic legal compliance.
Self-hosting is a starting point
Control must survive every connection.
A locally installed application may still send information to external models, identity providers, logging services, connectors or support systems. Each path needs an owner, policy and evidence.
Model boundary
Define which local, private or hosted model endpoints may receive prompts, retrieved context and generated content.
Identity and permissions
Connect sign-in, user lifecycle, groups and resource permissions to accountable organisational owners.
Knowledge and files
Decide which information may be uploaded, indexed, retained, shared, exported or deleted.
Tools and actions
Restrict which people and agents can call connectors, execute tools or change external systems.
Logs and recovery
Control what enters logs, where backups live, how long records remain and who can restore them.
Support and exit
Document operator access, update paths, support boundaries, exports and the handover needed to leave.
End-to-end boundary
Follow information from the user to the evidence record.
The deployment review should show what each stage can access, where it runs and which team is authorised to change it.
- IdentityAuthenticate the user and resolve current roles and group membership.
- ApplicationApply the permissions and retention rules of the organisational workflow.
- KnowledgeRetrieve only authorised files, records and contextual passages.
- ModelRoute prompts and context only to approved inference endpoints.
- ToolsConstrain connectors and consequential actions with policy and human approval.
- EvidenceRetain the permitted events, decisions and sources inside the agreed boundary.
Deployment patterns
The operating model follows the required boundary.
These patterns are not interchangeable. The selected version, operators, dependencies, update route and support process must be verified for the chosen environment.
Evidence, not labels
Make the boundary reviewable.
A sovereignty claim should lead to deployment-specific architecture, policy, technical tests and named operational responsibilities.
Minimum deployment record
- Architecture and end-to-end data-flow diagrams
- Software, model, dataset and licence inventory
- Operators, administrators and support-access paths
- External endpoints, telemetry and subprocessors
- Identity, permission, retention and audit policies
- Update, backup, recovery and incident procedures
- Export, migration and knowledge-transfer artefacts
Public-source direction
Software designed to be inspected and operated.
SovereignEU applications are being developed for source-available release and customer-controlled operation under branding-protected Community terms. No application makes an environment sovereign by itself; the configured workflow and operating model determine the real boundary.
Explore the platformIntended Enterprise Licence
Identity rights and expertise for the boundary you choose.
Executed Enterprise agreements are intended to grant scoped rebranding or white-label rights and add deployment engineering, integration, configuration, hardening, documentation, training and support.
Review planned Enterprise licensingA practical first step
Define the boundary before selecting the stack.
Map the infrastructure, information flows, operators and exit requirements for one concrete organisational workflow.