As sovereign cloud initiatives gather steam across Europe and beyond, organizations are confronting a pivotal question: How do you build cloud infrastructure that aligns with regional regulations while remaining agile, independent, and future-proof? Shaun O’Meara, CTO of Mirantis, believes the answer lies in open source. In a recent interview, O’Meara shared how open source technologies are helping cloud providers and enterprises navigate the complex terrain of sovereignty, customization, and resilience.

Cloud Sovereignty: The Growing Imperative
With recent investments—like Sweden’s push to develop its own hyper cloud—cloud sovereignty is moving from concept to concrete implementation. “A lot of these cloud providers want independence,” says O’Meara. “They want the ability to control their own destiny.”

This desire stems from both technical needs and geopolitical considerations. The collapse of frameworks like Privacy Shield highlighted the risks of relying too heavily on infrastructure controlled by other regions. “Open source removes the concern of companies being impacted by the political landscape,” he explains.

Built for Speed and Specialization
According to O’Meara, open source gives service providers a leg up in multiple ways. First, it eliminates the need to build from scratch. Teams can adopt proven solutions while tuning them to meet precise requirements—especially for multi-tenancy, latency, and service-level isolation.

“Service providers need things like hard multi-tenancy. They need often specialized tuning. Open source gives them that flexibility,” says O’Meara. Just as importantly, it allows them to contribute back, accelerating fixes and improvements.

Mirantis and the European Opportunity
For Mirantis, the rise of sovereign cloud is a major opportunity. By offering open infrastructure solutions that align with regional needs, the company positions itself at the intersection of innovation and compliance.

“We have different restrictions in Europe,” notes O’Meara, who splits his time between the US and the EU. “Open source allows us to be less dependent on single regions, single organizations, and spread the risk of running infrastructure globally.”

The Future Is Decentralized and Open
As cloud becomes more fragmented by design—shaped by regulatory, cultural, and operational forces—the value of open source will only grow. It enables a shared foundation across diverse environments without compromising autonomy.

Ultimately, O’Meara sees this shift as overdue but welcome: “It’s an opportunity for companies like Mirantis, for partners, and for any organization looking to build new services and products on sovereign infrastructure.”