SUSE has been recognised by Gartner across three 2026 Magic Quadrant reports, including a Leader position for Container Management for the third consecutive year. Named a Visionary in Server Virtualisation and Distributed Hybrid Infrastructure, SUSE provides a unified platform to manage VMs, containers, and AI workloads across multi-cloud and edge environments while ensuring digital sovereignty and avoiding vendor lock-in.
Together, SUSE believes these recognitions reflect the enterprise market’s shift toward unifying virtual machines (VMs) and containerized and AI workloads under a single open control plane across data center, multi-cloud, and edge infrastructure, eliminating operational silos while maintaining strict digital sovereignty as they scale AI initiatives.
“IT organizations need a clear, lock-in-free path to modernize their core infrastructure – one that allows them to run existing virtual machines and build cloud-native applications as they scale AI initiatives on the same foundation,” said Thomas Di Giacomo, chief technology and product officer, SUSE. “Our open, distributed infrastructure platform abstracts all of this complexity away, giving customers full operational control, enterprise security, and true freedom from vendor lock-in.”
“To us, this recognition is first and foremost a celebration of our customers and partners; their trust, innovation, and partnership are what make this possible,” said Peter Smails, general manager of SUSE’s Cloud Native business. “We believe IT leaders choose SUSE because they need complete control over their heterogeneous, edge, sovereign, and AI-driven environments. What truly sets us apart in the market is our commitment to pure openness. By unifying virtualization and containers under one control plane, we empower our customers to modernize on their own terms without operational silos or vendor lock-in.”
One Open Infrastructure Platform
At the core of SUSE’s strategy is a unified control plane that manages any Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF)-certified Kubernetes distribution, deployed across public clouds, including AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, core data centers, and remote edge locations. The platform treats virtualization as a native capability, running virtual machines and containers side by side on a single infrastructure layer, so organizations can manage both through the same interface and streamline workload management across virtualized and cloud-native environments alike.
The platform scales from core infrastructure to small-footprint edge deployments, extending unified policies across distributed sites, and powers everything from edge computing to high-performance AI workloads on GPU farms. Deep platform intelligence is delivered through an AI Agent Ecosystem carrying platform context, eBPF-level observability, and safe execution boundaries, internally and externally. Designed for strict compliance and sovereign operation, the stack fully supports air-gapped deployments using signed and verified software, giving organizations total authority over their data and infrastructure.
Lumen, a multinational tech and telecom provider, operates three public clouds plus on-premises infrastructure from a single console. “SUSE Rancher Prime gives us the ability to very easily move workloads between cloud providers. It gives us flexibility and prepares us for rapid change,” said Andy Reese, Director of Infrastructure Engineering, Lumen.
FIS-ASP GmbH, a leading full-service IT provider hosting complex SAP environments: “We chose SUSE Virtualization because it allows us to add an agile layer to our core SAP infrastructure. This enables us to deploy new applications more quickly and scale resources with greater flexibility,” said Manuel Sammeth, Managing Director, FIS-ASP.
ABA Bank, Cambodia’s largest private bank, runs internet and mobile banking on the platform with 99.999% availability; new microservices deploy in half the time and container management costs have fallen 15%. “We are excited by the transformative potential of AI. Having an open, flexible and secure containerized infrastructure, we can innovate quickly and confidently,” said Men Phalla, Head of DevOps Department, ABA Bank.
VisualCortex runs computer vision models at over 95% accuracy across distributed edge sites, pushing new AI models to any site in minutes from one control plane. “We needed an AI-optimised, cloud-agnostic platform that could support AI/ML workloads at scale across multi-cloud, edge and even air-gapped environments. SUSE Rancher Prime hit the mark perfectly,” said Ben Evans, Chief Technology Officer, VisualCortex.
A Gartner Magic Quadrant represents the culmination of research in a specific market, offering a comprehensive view of the relative positions of market competitors. Leaders execute well against their current vision and are well positioned for tomorrow, distinguishing themselves by offering a service suitable for strategic adoption and an ambitious roadmap.
