IBM and Yotta Data Services announced on May 5 their intentions to create a sovereign “agentic AI” platform aimed at enterprises and government bodies in India. This move comes as companies are increasingly seeking AI solutions that meet local data residency and governance standards.
The envisioned platform will merge IBM’s watsonx Orchestrate with Yotta’s Shakti Cloud infrastructure, enabling organisations to implement and manage AI agents across various departments such as IT service management, finance, procurement, HR, and customer support.
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This announcement arrives as Indian firms transition from merely experimenting with AI to operationalising AI tools on a larger scale, particularly in regulated industries such as banking, public services, and manufacturing.
Sunil Gupta, co-founder, managing director, and CEO of Yotta Data Services, stated that AI innovation in India should prioritise sovereignty, security, and performance. He expressed a commitment to empowering enterprises to utilise the advantages of agentic AI on a secure, India-based cloud, allowing them to innovate confidently while maintaining control over their data and operations.
The partnership also aims to introduce IBM Sovereign Core to India through Yotta’s Shakti Cloud infrastructure. This technology is intended to assist enterprises in constructing AI-ready sovereign environments that feature compliance monitoring, governance, and managed AI execution capabilities.
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IBM outlines that the proposed platform is built around four fundamental pillars of sovereignty: operational sovereignty, data sovereignty, technology sovereignty, and AI sovereignty. Features of this offering will include customer-operated control planes, in-boundary encryption, continuous compliance monitoring, and governed AI execution.
The sovereign infrastructure will be hosted within Yotta’s India-based, MeitY-empanelled cloud environment, ensuring that enterprises can meet local regulatory and audit requirements while executing AI workloads within established sovereign boundaries.
Sandip Patel, managing director of IBM India & South Asia, mentioned that Indian enterprises are becoming more focused on integrating AI in a safe, governed manner that aligns with regulatory expectations. He indicated that this collaboration will blend IBM’s AI capabilities with Yotta’s sovereign cloud infrastructure to assist organisations in scaling AI responsibly, embedding sovereignty, governance, transparency, and trust from the very beginning.
The two companies also expressed their intentions to jointly explore proofs-of-concept, co-create solutions, and implement technical enablement initiatives across various sectors, including banking, financial services, insurance, public sector, manufacturing, and digital-native enterprises.
