Sunrise and PHOENIQS enter into partnership – and offer sovereign Swiss AI with top data security for business customers
- Artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming a business-critical infrastructure for Swiss companies. Issues of control, regulatory requirements, sovereignty and security are becoming increasingly in focus. However, many AI platforms were designed for global scalability and speed, rather than for a highly regulated national environment where data security, transparency over data flows and clear legal requirements and responsibilities are essential.
- With their exclusive strategic partnership, Sunrise and PHOENIQS are closing this gap for Swiss companies. Thanks to this partnership, Sunrise is the only Swiss telecom provider able to offer its business customers AI solutions that are developed, hosted and operated entirely within Switzerland – in line with the highest security standards, compliant with Swiss law, with no data transferred abroad and no reliance on foreign cloud services.
- The planned offer is aimed at large enterprises, the public sector and SMEs, for example, in the finance, healthcare, administrative and energy sectors, and is tailored specially to the demanding requirements of regulated industries. There will be four modular, combinable components to meet the specific needs of companies. These AI components will also be available to the Sunrise B2B partner network (system integrators, IT service providers, etc.) so that they can be integrated and marketed within their own solutions.
The strategic partnership between Sunrise and PHOENIQS creates a new offer for business customers who wish to make productive use of artificial intelligence and demand high standards for location, operations and regulatory frameworks. The partnership is exclusively focused on Sunrise as a telecom provider and combines PHOENIQS’s expertise in AI infrastructure with the Sunrise access to the B2B market and its partner network.
The partnership is designed to be long-term and aims to make AI technology more widely available in Switzerland – without Sunrise itself becoming an AI infrastructure operator or PHOENIQS having to change its role as a technology provider. The product is due to be launched soon.
«Artificial intelligence is becoming a core strategic infrastructure for businesses. With PHOENIQS, we're enabling our business customers to use powerful AI solutions that are operated entirely in Switzerland – without compromising on data protection, compliance or digital sovereignty. This sets us apart from the competition and means we can offer our partner network an unbeatable competitive edge.»
«The partnership with Sunrise is a key step for us in making our AI infrastructure more widely available in the Swiss market. By integrating our services into B2B offers, we can reach companies of all sizes and in a variety of sectors, whilst still being able to focus entirely on our role as an infrastructure and technology provider.»
Sovereign AI meets strategic and regulatory requirements
When utilising AI, companies are increasingly faced with issues of data sovereignty, the regulatory framework and long-term control over data and workloads. In regulated sectors – such as finance and insurance, healthcare or the public sector – the requirements for AI applications such as generative AI, assistants and agents, the operation of language models via digital interfaces (application programming interfaces, APIs), the data and computing processes required for AI applications, and computer- and processor-based operations within the AI cloud are particularly high.
The offer, which is based on the partnership between Sunrise and PHOENIQS, specifically addresses these requirements by ensuring that the development, hosting and operation of the AI infrastructure take place exclusively in Switzerland, rather than on global cloud platforms outside the country. This ensures that no data is transferred to data centres abroad, that employees can access confidential business and customer data without it leaving Switzerland, and that it can be used to train the various models. PHOENIQS’s Swiss data centres are operated solely in accordance with Swiss law.
Four modules for varying needs
The planned offer will comprise four components which will address a range of requirements across the entire AI value chain – from ready-to-use applications and access to language models to infrastructure and secure connectivity. Sunrise will integrate these infrastructure services into its business-customer portfolio and provide them through its existing B2B solutions. Alongside direct business customers, the offer is also aimed at the Sunrise partner network. System integrators, IT service providers, software companies and sector specialists will be able to use the AI components as the basis for their own offers and solutions, combine them with existing products and resell them under their own brand.