IBM partners Yotta to build sovereign AI stack for Indian enterprises

Combines AI infrastructure, model services and agent governance capabilities as demand grows for domestically controlled AI deployments.

IBM and Yotta Data Services have announced the general availability of a sovereign agentic AI platform for Indian organisations, targeting enterprises that are looking to move artificial intelligence initiatives from experimentation to production while maintaining data, infrastructure and governance controls within India.

The jointly developed platform combines IBM's enterprise AI technology with Yotta's sovereign AI infrastructure and platform services.

Built on IBM's watsonx Orchestrate and deployed on Yotta's Shakti Cloud, the offering is designed to provide enterprises with a foundation for deploying, managing and governing AI agents at scale.

Indian enterprises face questions around AI governance, data localisation, regulatory compliance and operational control over AI workloads.

Rather than focusing solely on AI model access, IBM and Yotta are positioning the platform as a sovereign AI environment spanning infrastructure, model development, inference and enterprise governance.

According to the companies, IBM watsonx Orchestrate serves as the platform's agentic control plane, enabling organisations to secure, govern and manage AI agents as adoption scales across different business functions.

Yotta's Shakti Cloud provides the compute, GPU infrastructure, networking and security capabilities required for enterprise AI workloads, while Shakti Studio allows organisations to develop, fine-tune, deploy and run both open-source and proprietary AI models.

Enterprises are seeking platforms that can address both AI innovation and compliance requirements in a single environment.

"With regulations evolving in India, digital sovereignty and open-source models are becoming a defining requirement for organisations as they scale AI from pilots to production. The priority is no longer just what AI can do, but how securely, transparently and compliantly it can be deployed," said Sandip Patel, managing director, IBM India and South Asia.

Patel said the partnership would help organisations build and manage AI agents while keeping critical data, inference and governance controls anchored in India.

The emphasis on sovereignty extends beyond data localisation. Sunil Gupta, Co-Founder, Managing Director and CEO of Yotta Data Services, said organisations require control over the full AI stack, including infrastructure, compute, models, inference and operational capabilities.

"India's AI journey requires organisations to have control not only over their data, but also over the infrastructure, compute, models, inference and operations that power AI. Yotta's Shakti Cloud and Shakti Studio provide this sovereign AI foundation, while IBM brings its enterprise AI and agentic AI capabilities to help organisations move from experimentation to production," Gupta said.

He added that the two companies are bringing what they describe as an end-to-end sovereign AI stack to Indian organisations by combining sovereign AI infrastructure, AI models and inference capabilities with enterprise agentic AI, governance and compliance features.

Open source models key to enterprise AI

The platform is available through Yotta's cloud regions in Panvel and Greater Noida, providing the domestic infrastructure footprint that underpins the sovereignty proposition. Organisations can use the platform across enterprise workflows including security operations, document processing and HR automation.

The launch also highlights the importance of open-source AI in enterprise deployments. Both companies referenced open-source models as an important component of enterprise AI strategies as organisations seek greater transparency, flexibility and control over AI deployments.

As Indian enterprises expand AI adoption, sovereign AI has emerged as a key area of focus across cloud providers, data-centre operators and technology vendors.

IBM's partnership with Yotta signals growing demand for AI platforms that combine local infrastructure with enterprise-grade governance and orchestration tools, particularly in sectors where compliance, security and operational control are becoming as important as access to AI models themselves.