Founder and CEO, Katonic AI · Co-author, Own Your AI · Dubai
Sovereign AI is a control question, not a location question.
Prem Naraindas runs Katonic AI, a sovereign AI platform used by governments and regulated enterprises across Asia Pacific and the Middle East, and co-wrote Own Your AI, the book that introduced the Sovereignty Test.
01The idea
Location is the cheap layer.
Governments and enterprises are sold sovereignty as a place: a region, a data centre, a flag on the box. The deployments that work treat it as a question of control. Who holds the keys, who could compel disclosure, who could terminate access, and what you would do the morning after.
That comes from eleven years of putting enterprise technology into regulated production, and from the deployments Katonic runs today in eleven countries for banks, telecommunications operators, governments and industry. Two are on the record: Pilipinas AI with ePLDT, and MODON in Saudi Arabia.
A bank that did everything its regulator asked scored 14 out of 30. Location done, control not started.
02The test
Four dimensions of control. A system passes only on all four.
Who governs it
Which jurisdiction's laws apply, and who can compel disclosure or mandate changes.
Who runs it
Who operates it day to day, and whether they can be compelled by a foreign entity.
Who holds the keys
Encryption keys, credentials, the update path, and whether it works disconnected.
Who can switch it off
Who decides what it becomes next, and who can terminate access unilaterally.
Six statements, scored one to five, give a number out of 30. Score your organisation, or read the book it comes from.
03Now
- 1
Own Your AI, the newsletter
Every second Thursday on LinkedIn: one framework or one field note from a regulated deployment, then the fortnight's news run through the test. Subscribe or read the issues.
- 2
Speaking
Three talks for boards, CIOs, regulators and builders: the Sovereignty Test, production AI as an access problem, and what open source actually buys you. Talks and bookings.
- 3
Lead Green, the data
A public index of the GPU energy it takes to serve a million tokens, by model, GPU and load, with grid carbon for 194 places. Open data, open API, a Katonic project I edit. leadgreen.ai.
- 4
Next on stage
An HPE series recording in November 2026. Recent stages include HPE Discover More Hong Kong, NVIDIA GTC Taipei and the World Safety Summit in Dubai.
04Books
March 2026 · with Vinod Bijlani
Own Your AI
The Sovereign Stack Playbook for Nations and Enterprises. The book that defined the Sovereignty Test, the Sovereignty Maturity Index and the Sovereignty Certificate.
April 2025 · with Ahmed Sulaiman
Building an AI Center of Excellence
From Strategy to Implementation. The operating model that makes control real: twelve chapters on foundations, strategy, governance and scaling.
05About
I founded Katonic in 2020. The platform runs inside the customer's own perimeter: on the infrastructure they already own or rent, on the GPUs they bought, with the models their regulator allows. Their choice, not ours.
Before that, two decades of enterprise technology, including Global Blockchain Offering Director at DXC Technology and Head of Digital Sales for Australia and New Zealand at Tata Consultancy Services. Born in India, eight countries since, Dubai now. Katonic is an NVIDIA ISV Partner, its platform is NVIDIA Validated, and it is certified to ISO/IEC 27001:2022.
Outside work you will find me looking at old buildings, or with my two daughters. Facts, bios and quotes for press.
Score your organisation out of 30.
Six statements, five minutes, one number a board can hear. Then four sentences to write before your next vendor meeting.
Take the Sovereignty Test