Telenor AI Factory has selected F5's (NASDAQ: FFIV) BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes as a traffic management and policy layer for its NVIDIA-powered sovereign AI infrastructure, according to a press release from F5.

The deployment combines Telenor's national infrastructure with Nvidia BlueField data processing units (DPUs) and F5's traffic management software. The setup is intended to support Norwegian and European organizations that require control over where AI-related data is processed, stored, and accessed.

F5 BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes running on Nvidia BlueField-3 DPUs provides secure multi-tenancy, policy-based traffic control, and real-time observability for the Telenor AI Factory platform. By offloading selected networking and security functions to the DPU, the configuration is designed to preserve host CPU capacity for AI workloads and reduce data-path bottlenecks.

Telenor plans to add token-aware governance, circuit breaking, and inference-aware traffic optimization as its commercial AI services expand. These capabilities are intended to support usage monitoring, entitlement management, and billing workflows.

"Sovereignty has to extend beyond where infrastructure sits to how AI services are operated and governed. F5 gives us a policy and traffic-control layer we can build on as we scale services for customers," said Kaaren Hilsen, CEO of Telenor AI Factory.

Kunal Anand, Chief Product Officer at F5, said BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes gives Telenor "a path to deeper token-aware governance and DPU acceleration as requirements evolve."

Ash Bhalgat, Senior Director of AI Ecosystem and Marketing at Nvidia, said the combined infrastructure helps service providers "deliver high-performance AI services while maintaining the governance, control, and security required for sovereign AI."