F5 & Red Hat expand AI partnership for secure cloud-native apps

F5 has expanded its collaboration with Red Hat to support enterprise adoption of secure and scalable artificial intelligence (AI) applications and has introduced F5 BIG-IP Next Cloud-Native Network Functions (CNF) 2.0 to assist organisations in handling the demands of high-bandwidth operations.

The expanded partnership between F5 and Red Hat will facilitate integration of the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform with Red Hat OpenShift AI. This approach aims to enable enterprises to more rapidly and securely implement AI, supporting use cases such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), secure model serving, and robust data ingestion mechanisms.

"Enterprises are eager to harness the power of AI, but they face significant challenges in scaling and securing these applications," said Kunal Anand, Chief Innovation Officer at F5. "Our collaboration with Red Hat aims to simplify this journey by providing integrated solutions that address performance, security, and observability needs, enabling organisations to realise tangible AI outcomes."

An F5 survey presented in its 2025 State of Application Strategy Report underlines the accelerating pace of AI adoption: 96 per cent of organisations are now deploying AI models, a marked rise from 25 per cent in 2023. The same report reveals that 72 per cent of respondents are targeting AI for optimising application performance, while 59 per cent are using it to improve cost efficiency and security.

The collaboration between F5 and Red Hat will address various operational building blocks necessary for enterprise AI deployment, which include securing data pipelines and optimising inference performance. The focus is on ensuring that organisations have the confidence, speed, and control needed for AI adoption.

Specific areas of this collaboration include RAG and model serving at scale, where F5 provides support for AI-powered applications on Red Hat OpenShift AI, facilitating secure data flows, optimal GPU utilisation, and quick response times. Joint efforts also address the acceleration of big data ingestion, through the combined capabilities of MinIO and F5 on Red Hat OpenShift AI, supporting the training and inference process for large datasets. API-first AI security is highlighted, as F5 offers protection from threats such as prompt injection, model theft, and data leakage through its distributed cloud and BIG-IP solutions.

The alliance positions F5's API gateway and AI security features to integrate seamlessly with Red Hat's open platform, offering customers an open and flexible approach to AI infrastructure. Red Hat OpenShift AI allows for modular development and deployment of AI applications across hybrid environments.

"As AI becomes core to how businesses operate and compete, organisations need platforms that offer flexibility without compromising security," said Joe Fernandes, Vice President and General Manager, AI Business Unit, Red Hat. "We believe the future of AI is open source, and Red Hat OpenShift AI, when used in combination with F5's robust security and observability, gives organisations the necessary tools to build and scale AI applications with greater confidence, anywhere they choose to run them."

Alongside the Red Hat partnership, F5 introduced F5 BIG-IP Next CNF 2.0, a solution designed to meet the growing requirements of large-scale cloud-native applications in industries where AI and other high-bandwidth applications are prevalent. The solution enhances the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform with new Kubernetes-native features.

F5 BIG-IP Next CNF 2.0 is tailored for telecommunications providers, ISPs, cloud service providers, and large enterprises, offering a consolidated method to handle security, resource allocation, and network operation scaling. Integrated services include DDoS protection, firewall, intrusion prevention, and carrier-grade network address translation, allowing organisations to manage infrastructure and traffic with increased efficiency.

Kunal Anand said, "Service providers and large enterprises are under pressure to scale faster, operate leaner, and stay secure—all in increasingly complex environments. With BIG-IP Next CNF 2.0, we're extending the F5 ADSP with a truly cloud-native solution built for modern, decentralised infrastructure. Unlike legacy virtualised approaches that burn resources, our Kubernetes-native architecture unlocks smarter scaling, stronger security, and more efficient delivery of high-bandwidth services—giving customers the flexibility to move faster without compromise."

The product introduces features such as horizontal scalability through disaggregation, accelerated DNS services for improved latency, advanced policy enforcement, and unified security management. F5 reports that the solution can lower CPU utilisation by 33 per cent and reduce infrastructure costs by over 60 per cent, while offering separate scaling for control and data planes for increased deployment flexibility.

F5 BIG-IP Next CNF 2.0 has been designed for effective integration with Red Hat OpenShift, leveraging Kubernetes to provide service providers with greater scalability, simplified usability, and enhanced security for modern cloud-native applications. These capabilities are intended to help organisations streamline management, ensure low-latency performance, and adapt to growing network demands associated with high-bandwidth services such as AI.