Rafay and Fortanix Extend Confidential AI as a Service to Kubernetes Pods

Rafay Systems and Fortanix announced a joint offering at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2026 that extends their confidential AI integration from virtual machines to Kubernetes pods, with Rafay support for CNCF Confidential Containers (CoCo) deployments available now. The Rafay Platform orchestrates workloads on CoCo with Fortanix Confidential AI, and Fortanix Confidential Computing Manager performs composite attestation across CPU and GPU trusted execution environments so that Fortanix Data Security Manager releases encryption keys only to environments that pass attestation. The companies cited Fortanix and Atomik Research findings that 93% of AI leaders understand traditional encryption does not protect data while AI processes it, but only half can fully verify that protection is in place during inference.

Rafay and Fortanix Extend Confidential AI as a Service to Kubernetes Pods SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Rafay Systems and Fortanix on Thursday, as KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2026 wrapped up, announced a joint offering that extends their confidential AI integration from virtual machines to Kubernetes pods. The Rafay Platform now orchestrates workloads that run on CNCF Confidential Containers CoCo with Fortanix Confidential AI, giving neoclouds, sovereign AI clouds and enterprises a way to deliver confidential AI as a service. CoCo, a CNCF incubating project built on Kata Containers, runs each pod in its own lightweight confidential virtual machine, with memory encrypted by the CPU and, on supported hardware, GPUs included in the trust boundary. Fortanix Confidential Computing Manager performs composite attestation across CPU and GPU trusted execution environments, firmware and software components, and Fortanix Data Security Manager releases encryption keys only to environments that pass attestation. If attestation fails, keys stay protected and the workload cannot reach sensitive data. Turning Confidential Clusters Into a Service Rafay supplies the operating layer. Rafay blueprints install the Fortanix CoCo add-ons and keep them in sync across every confidential cluster, while operators onboard GPU infrastructure once and give each customer an isolated tenant. Administrators can package a confidential workload as a SKU in Rafay SKU Studio, and end users launch it on demand from the Rafay Developer Hub without filing a support ticket. Policy, access controls and quotas apply across tenants and clusters. “With Confidential Containers, that model now reaches the Kubernetes pod, where AI teams already ship their workloads,” said Mohan Atreya, chief product officer at Rafay. Anuj Jaiswal, chief product officer at Fortanix, said model owners, enterprises and operators each want assurance that the others cannot see what they own, adding that “Fortanix Confidential AI releases keys only to attested workloads.” Availability Rafay support for CoCo-based deployments with Fortanix Confidential AI is available now, alongside the existing confidential VM integration. Fortanix first announced Confidential AI support for CoCo on Oct. 19. The companies cited research from Fortanix and Atomik Research finding that while 93% of AI leaders understand traditional encryption does not protect data while AI processes it, only half can fully verify that protection is in place during inference.