Vultr and SUSE form Vultr Cloud Alliance to advance open-source Kubernetes and AI innovation at KubeCon Europe

30 March 2026

Vultr, the global privately-held cloud infrastructure company, has entered into a strategic collaboration with SUSE, the global provider of enterprise open source solutions, through the Vultr Cloud Alliance.

This marks the formation of the partnership, announced at KubeCon Europe, and underscores both companies’ shared commitment to open-source innovation, Kubernetes adoption, and scalable AI infrastructure within the broader cloud native ecosystem.

As part of the collaboration, self-hosted SUSE Rancher Prime and SUSE AI will be made available through the Vultr Marketplace, enabling customers to deploy enterprise-grade Kubernetes management on Vultr’s global cloud infrastructure.

SUSE Rancher Prime, a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant, is well recognised for providing enterprises with an ‘easy button’ for hybrid IT – bringing together development, virtualisation, Kubernetes, security, observability and automation for seamlessly building, managing, and scaling with confidence on Vultr’s global, composable cloud infrastructure.

SUSE AI, a CNCF-conformant cloud-native AI platform, extends the SUSE Rancher Prime Suite and is purpose-built to deploy, manage, and run AI workloads at scale on Vultr Cloud GPU. With SUSE AI, leverage zero-trust security and integrated observability dashboards that provide peace of mind when moving from PoC to production. From a business resilience perspective, sovereign AI is a key ingredient. More and more regulation requires, for example, full transparency on how software is built and how the software bill of materials (SBOM) looks like. SUSE AI, running on Vultr’s sovereign cloud infrastructure, brings extensive observability and security capabilities to the table to address the sovereign AI risk, and helps customers understand and manage them.

The alliance accelerates joint innovation with SUSE Rancher Prime and SUSE AI on Vultr infrastructure, enabling enterprises to deploy production-ready AI workloads. Both companies will showcase this collaboration at Cloud Native AI & Kubeflow Day Europe, the co-located event that brings together the Kubeflow and MLOps communities to explore scalable, cloud-native AI systems.

Enabling Enterprise Kubernetes and AI Without Lock-In

Enterprises are increasingly standardising on Kubernetes and CNCF-aligned technologies to support hybrid cloud strategies and rapidly expanding AI workloads. However, fragmented Kubernetes operations, GPU access constraints, governance requirements, and hyperscaler lock-in continue to challenge IT and platform teams.

Through the Vultr Cloud Alliance, Vultr and SUSE are joining forces to deliver an open, flexible, and cost-efficient cloud platform built on trusted cloud-native and sovereign-ready technologies. Together, the companies will provide:

  • Vultr Cloud GPU and Vultr Bare Metal with SUSE AI to support AI workloads, including model training and inference.
  • Vultr Cloud Compute (from high-performance to Vultr VX1™ instances) with SUSE Rancher Prime to run and manage traditional containerized workloads in a cost-efficient environment.
  • Greater workload portability and reduced vendor lock-in through CNCF-aligned open source technologies
  • By offering both SUSE’s enterprise Kubernetes management and AI platform with Vultr’s global, composable infrastructure, customers can choose to standardise operations with SUSE Rancher Prime or accelerate AI initiatives and maintain control over cost, compliance, and performance with SUSE AI 

Supporting the Cloud-Native AI Ecosystem

AI adoption is accelerating demand for scalable GPU infrastructure and consistent operational models across environments. Vultr provides access to high-performance cloud GPU solutions, including NVIDIA and AMD Instinct™ GPUs, while SUSE delivers governance, security, and lifecycle control across Kubernetes and AI environments.

This collaboration reflects both companies’ engagement with the open source community and their support for Kubernetes-based AI frameworks, including Kubeflow, which continues to serve as a foundation for production AI in cloud-native environments.

“Open source is at the core of everything we do, and Kubernetes standardisation is critical to helping enterprises simplify cloud-native operations,” said Kevin Cochrane, chief marketing officer, Vultr. “Our partnership with SUSE through the Vultr Cloud Alliance reflects our shared commitment within the CNCF ecosystem to deliver flexible, enterprise-ready Kubernetes and AI solutions that empower developers and organisations globally.”

Rhys Oxenham, VP and general manager of AI, SUSE, added, "The future of enterprise cloud depends on interoperability and the ability to scale without complexity in an AI-centric world. By bringing SUSE Rancher Prime and SUSE AI to the Vultr Marketplace, we are making it easier for global organisations to manage their expanding cloud-native and AI workloads on high-performance infrastructure. SUSE AI delivers a robust, secure, and enterprise-ready foundation that gives customers the agility to deploy next-generation AI solutions and agentic workflows while maintaining full control over their digital sovereignty.“