SUSE survey finds 98% prioritize digital sovereignty

SUSE released findings from a survey of IT leaders on digital sovereignty and digital resilience as adoption of AI accelerated. The results point to a gap between organizations that set digital sovereignty as a priority and those that take steps to implement it.

The research covered 309 IT leaders across France, Germany, India, Japan and the U.S. It reported that nearly all respondents (98%) prioritize digital sovereignty, while just over half (52%) said they were taking action. It also found that 41% linked their actions to customer or regulatory requirements.

In the same survey, 64% of IT leaders cited AI transparency, including control over model training and AI provenance, as a top driver of digital resilience over the next five years. The study also reported that cybersecurity and threat detection (63%) and multi-cloud or hybrid diversification (52%) were among the top priorities for resilience, alongside backup and recovery (45%) and continuous monitoring (44%).

SUSE’s Navigating Digital Resilience report framed control as a common thread in how organizations define digital resilience. SUSE also described that 45% included sovereignty in recent RFPs and 42% selected vendors based on it. “Organizations are often forced to choose between accelerating AI and maintaining digital sovereignty, but it’s a false tradeoff,” said Margaret Dawson, Chief Marketing Officer, SUSE. “Sovereign AI makes it possible to achieve both, embedding control, compliance and innovation into the same foundation.”

Looking ahead, the report said AI transparency and AI provenance are expected to shape digital resilience priorities, and it described that hyperscalers were seen as relevant for supporting sovereign workloads by 65% of respondents.