Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source solutions, today announced Red Hat Confirmed Sovereign Support for the 27 member states of the European Union to address the critical strategic imperative for digital sovereignty in Europe. This new support offering is purpose-built to deliver dedicated EU-citizen-driven technical support from within the EU for Red Hat software subscriptions, providing a new level of verifiable local control over critical IT operations.
More and more European business leaders are looking to digital sovereignty as a way to help drive economic differentiation in a global marketplace, as well as insulate operations from geopolitical dynamics and safeguard EU data, technology and operations. At the same time, these leaders want to further cloud infrastructure resiliency and AI innovation goals through strengthened supply chain transparency, jurisdictional security, compliance and autonomy.
Red Hat Confirmed Sovereign Support is designed to address this growing demand from European leaders for operational sovereignty. It also builds on Red Hat’s decade-plus expertise in delivering support models for specific regions and industries, especially for customers operating in highly regulated markets or facing strict compliance requirements. Red Hat Confirmed Sovereign Support helps enhance systems security and protect operations of EU organizations, building on the trust that more than 20,000 organizations globally already place on Red Hat’s open hybrid cloud portfolio and technical support.
The sovereign mandate: The Red Hat advantage
Red Hat Confirmed Sovereign Support will offer the highest levels of technical expertise with localized technical support staff and greater independence from non-EU dynamics, which enhances operational resilience and supports business continuity goals. The offering extends Red Hat’s commitment to empowering customers with the control, choice and transparency of open source technologies, delivered through key features, including:
- Dedicated EU citizen staffing: Access to support expertise delivered by verified European Union citizens operating solely within the 27 EU member states.
- Localized operational control: Reinforces that EU technical support oversees the provision of support services.
- 24/7 in-region availability: Provides round-the-clock technical support delivered within the EU region, aligning with sovereignty and service continuity requirements.
- Expansive local ecosystem: Red Hat’s approach is further amplified by its robust ecosystem of more than 500 EU cloud partners, many of whom already offer sovereign clouds. This powerful network helps strategically reduce reliance on non-EU hyperscalers, providing customers with robust, local alternatives that align directly with regional regulatory policies and economic priorities.
- Foundation for sovereign cloud: Red Hat Confirmed Sovereign Support is built to underpin Red Hat’s broader open hybrid cloud and AI portfolios, enabling organizations to deploy, run and maintain both current and future IT estates independently across any sovereign cloud environment.
Red Hat believes that the only credible path to digital sovereignty is a foundation built on open source, which inherently delivers the transparency and auditability that regulatory bodies and organizations require. This approach, centered on choice and control, fundamentally distinguishes Red Hat from proprietary “sovereign” offerings built on closed software and opaque architectures.
Availability
Red Hat Confirmed Sovereign Support will be available in early 2026. Interested parties should inquire with their local account executive for more details as they become available.
Supporting Quotes
Chris Wright, CTO and senior vice president, Global Engineering, Red Hat
“Digital sovereignty means keeping control over your own technology destiny, from data location to software and operations. Navigating the EU’s stringent regulatory and compliance frameworks demands an open source-driven, transparent, auditable foundation and a local operational support model. Red Hat Confirmed Sovereign Support offers exactly that: a fully EU-anchored support experience, run by EU citizens for EU organizations backed by the trust of our open hybrid cloud portfolio.”
Hans Roth, senior vice president & general manager EMEA, Red Hat:
“Red Hat is making a clear, demonstrable investment in European digital sovereignty. European organizations require control over their infrastructure, and that control must start with the people who support it. With Red Hat Confirmed Sovereign Support, we are directly addressing this demand by delivering an EU-citizen-driven support team and workflow for our enterprise open source solutions. This offering underscores Red Hat’s commitment to empowering EU organizations to own their digital destiny and build upon our open hybrid cloud foundation for greater digital autonomy and resilience.”
