SUSE®, the leading sovereign open infrastructure company, recently announced new capabilities across its open infrastructure platform to help enterprises deploy, manage, and secure AI and business-critical workloads across hybrid environments.
The platform unites SUSE Rancher Prime for managing Kubernetes applications and virtual machines, SUSE AI Factory for building and running AI workloads, and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 16.1, the enterprise operating system providing the foundation for cloud-native and virtualised workloads. These updates introduce agentic AI capabilities for more intelligent infrastructure management, alongside expanded support for immutable infrastructure, real-time performance, and security. Together, these advancements help organisations simplify operations, accelerate modernisation, and maintain greater control over their infrastructure.
“As enterprises move from experimenting with AI to deploying it at scale, they need infrastructure that can support new workloads alongside existing applications without compromising security, performance, or control”, said Dr. Thomas Di Giacomo, Chief Technology and Product Officer, SUSE. “SUSE is bringing greater intelligence and simplicity to infrastructure operations while giving customers the freedom to innovate across their environments. Our commitment to open infrastructure means organisations can embrace AI on their terms, without being locked into a single technology stack or vendor”.
Customer impact
As AI deployments become a top enterprise priority, organisational teams are increasingly investing in open infrastructure and Kubernetes management capabilities needed to support workloads across hybrid environments. According to recent research sponsored by SUSE, Kubernetes management is IT leaders’ top investment priority, followed by AI, with 24% identifying AI-assisted operational troubleshooting as a solution to simplify Kubernetes management across hybrid environments.
SUSE is addressing these priorities through intelligent operations, unified infrastructure management, and stronger software supply chain security, helping enterprises reduce operational overhead while maintaining control of their environments.
Intelligent operations across Kubernetes and Virtual Machines
SUSE Rancher Prime expands AI-assisted infrastructure management with Liz, its context-aware AI orchestrator, and a new AI Crew of specialised sub-agents that help teams diagnose issues, troubleshoot workloads, and manage infrastructure. Integration with SUSE Virtualisation extends these capabilities beyond Kubernetes to virtual machines, giving teams a more consistent approach to managing hybrid environments.
New OAuth2 support enables Liz to connect with MCP servers, while an AI-first Rancher CLI with server-side dry-run capabilities simplifies infrastructure operations. SUSE Observability StackPacks 2.0 also expands visibility into complex environments to support faster troubleshooting.
These advancements help address the pressure to accelerate workloads without compromising security. Research found that 91% of organisations acknowledge employees bypass security controls at least occasionally to work faster. By combining AI-assisted troubleshooting with human approval steps for AI-driven actions, SUSE Rancher Prime helps teams improve efficiency while maintaining enterprise oversight.
Unified Open Infrastructure for AI and Virtual Machines
SUSE Rancher Prime simplifies management of Kubernetes applications, virtual machines, and AI workloads, powered by SUSE AI Factory (and SUSE AI Factory with NVIDIA), across hybrid environments while allowing organisations to build on existing infrastructure investments.
SUSE Rancher Prime Virtual Clusters now supports Hosted Control Plane mode, enabling platform teams to provide Kubernetes as a Service with RKE2. SUSE Storage v2 data engine delivers up to 10 times faster performance for stateful workloads, while SUSE Virtualisation advanced networking with Kube-OVN supports overlay networking and tenant isolation. Native Cluster API infrastructure providers for RKE2 further simplify infrastructure management through the broader Cluster API ecosystem.
Complementing these advancements, SLES 16.1 consolidates traditional, immutable and real-time workloads under one operating system lifecycle and support relationship, reducing complexity and supporting modernisation without disruptive migrations. It also introduces an on-box Model Context Protocol (MCP) framework in Tech Preview for AI-assisted diagnostics and infrastructure management. Building on the recently announced SLES for NVIDIA, designed to support next-generation NVIDIA-accelerated infrastructure, SLES 16.1 also delivers Live Patching, post-quantum cryptography readiness, and software supply chain verification to further strengthen its foundation for enterprise AI and business-critical workloads.
Securing the AI software supply chain
SUSE is strengthening security from software development through runtime, helping enterprises build AI applications on trusted components while improving visibility into vulnerabilities and threats.
SUSE Application Collection now includes more than 1,000+ Python libraries built from verified sources, with software bills of material (SBOMs) and provenance information that help developers assess dependencies and reduce software supply chain risk. Many of these libraries form the foundation of the AI component catalogue in SUSE AI Factory, giving teams a trusted, traceable base for building and deploying AI workloads.
The upcoming SUSE Security 6.0 release introduces SUSE Security Vulnerability Scanner to identify and prioritise vulnerabilities in deployed workloads and cluster nodes, and SUSE Security Runtime Enforcer to detect and block anomalous workload behaviour. Together, these capabilities help organisations strengthen protection across the AI application lifecycle.
Availability
SLES 16.1 is available beginning November 10, 2026, with SUSE Rancher Prime enhancements available according to their respective release schedules. The SLES 16.1 on-box MCP framework is available in Tech Preview, while the AI-first Rancher CLI and SUSE Rancher Prime Virtual Clusters Hosted Control Plane mode are in open Beta. Additional capabilities will be introduced with upcoming SUSE Rancher Prime and SUSE Security releases. Learn more at https://www.suse.com/products/rancher/.’
Image Credit: SUSE
Source: Tahawul Tech