CANBERRA, Australia, August 3 — H2O.ai, the sovereign enterprise AI platform for predictive, generative and agentic AI, with built-in observability and governance, today announced a strategic partnership with CAN.B Group, an Australian-owned technology and advisory company, to help government agencies, critical infrastructure operators and highly regulated organisations design, deploy and govern AI within Australian sovereign, regulatory and mission requirements.
The partnership combines H2O.ai’s world-class enterprise AI platform with CAN.B Group’s sovereign architecture, governance, assurance and mission delivery capabilities.
Through AUSOVRN®, CAN.B Group’s mission-built sovereign capability ecosystem, Australian organisations will be able to access H2O.ai as part of coordinated, mission-aligned solutions designed to preserve visibility, portability, control and freedom of action.
As Australia increases its focus on secure and responsible AI adoption, organizations face growing pressure to translate policy, strategy and individual use cases into governed operational capability. Together, H2O.ai and CAN.B Group will provide customers with a practical pathway from use-case identification and solution design to secure deployment, model governance, operational adoption and ongoing capability development.
“Australian government and critical infrastructure buyers don’t just want AI, they want sovereign AI they can prove is compliant and under their control before it touches a live system,” said Jamie Lim, Vice President of Partnerships, APAC, at H2O.ai. “That’s what AUSOVRN gives them, and why H2O.ai belongs inside it.”
The partnership will initially focus on the Australian market, with particular relevance to federal, state, territory and local government, as well as defence, national security, law enforcement, critical infrastructure, financial services, insurance, health and other data-sensitive industries.
Areas of collaboration will include:
- Governed enterprise AI adoption and model lifecycle management
- Secure generative AI assistants and agentic workflows
- Decision intelligence, predictive analytics and operational forecasting
- Fraud, risk, anomaly and threat detection
- Sovereign AI deployments across on-premises, sovereign cloud and air-gapped environments
- AI governance, explainability, auditability and assurance
- Mission-critical automation, case management and service delivery
- AI capability development, adoption and operating-model design
“H2O.ai brings the enterprise-grade AI capability required to support complex and highly regulated environments. Through AUSOVRN®, we can integrate that capability into a sovereign operating model that gives customers greater control, flexibility and confidence as their missions and technology requirements evolve,” said Alex McNamara, Managing Director and Co-Founder at CanB.
CAN.B Group is the architect and operator of AUSOVRN®, a sovereign capability ecosystem that coordinates trusted Australian and global partners across artificial intelligence, cloud, cyber security, data, infrastructure, identity, governance, assurance, workforce capability and mission delivery.
Operating as the National Coordination Layer, CAN.B Group provides the sovereign architecture, governance, commercial coordination, assurance and repeatable delivery methods required to translate complex policy and operational requirements into measurable outcomes.
CAN.B Group’s appointment to the Australian Government’s Digital Marketplace Panel 2 also provides government buyers with an established procurement pathway to access CAN.B Group-led services and H2O.ai capabilities as part of broader AUSOVRN® solutions.
Together, H2O.ai and CAN.B Group will help customers address barriers to enterprise AI adoption, including security and privacy requirements, fragmented technology environments, governance uncertainty, regulatory obligations, procurement complexity, limited internal capability and dependency on proprietary platforms or individual providers.
The partnership reflects a shared commitment to strengthening Australia’s long-term AI capability and helping organisations deploy trusted, governed and mission-ready AI at scale.