Red Hat Summit: How open source and AI are shaping the future
On January 15, 2025, the manufacturer of open source solutions Red Hat hosted its "Red Hat Summit Connect" in Dübendorf. Customers and other interested parties received a wealth of information about new and proven applications of open source solutions - including, of course, in connection with AI.
The company Red Hat is regarded by experts as a pioneer in the development of open source solutions, i.e. software whose source code is public and which can be copied, distributed and used as desired. For example, the programming of "Docker", a solution for container virtualization (a method of allowing a host system to be used by several instances of an operating system simultaneously, which is of crucial importance for cloud computing), can be traced back to this company. This widely used solution is now integrated into the "OpenShift" product. Red Hat also provides many other powerful Linux, hybrid cloud, container and Kubernetes technologies.
A tour through the OSS world of Red Hat
Richard Zobrist, Country Manager Switzerland at Red Hat, opened the conference with around 1,000 registered participants and looked back on an eventful - and above all fast-moving - 2024. He revealed that the past year had been dominated by AI and automation. Léonard Bodmer, Revenue Leader Western Europe, noted that many processes in Europe are now open source-based. With regard to AI, he said that it requires a "human touch". "By 2029, 80 percent of decisions made by humans will not yet have been replaced by AI," said Bodmer, referring to the results of a study by consultancy firm Gartner. However, AI is increasingly supporting people in their decisions, according to Bodmer.
Red Hat's CTO Chris Wright then gave an initial overview of how open source and artificial intelligence will interact in the future. "We are only at the beginning of the era of generative AI," said Wright. It goes without saying that Red Hat wants to be at the forefront of this. The company has developed its own data model called "InstructLab" to train large language models (LLMs). What's more, the tool allows AI applications to be built specifically for certain tasks. Red Hat has also developed Ansible Automation, a platform for AI-controlled workflows. And with the acquisition of Neural Magic, Red Hat intends to expand its expertise in the areas of inference performance engineering and model optimization, as Wright announced.
Marcel Haerri then demonstrated a possible use case from the insurance industry. This involved the development of a chatbot that provides policyholders with support when settling claims after car accidents, for example with suggestions for repairs. Haerri used various tools from Red Hat to build this chatbot. Stefanie Chiras' presentation focused on virtualization and containerization. She referred to Red Hat's aforementioned pioneering role in this area and its collaboration with a growing number of partners - including Intel with its "Intel Gaudi" product for deep learning - in a comprehensive ecosystem.
Open source software in public administration
In his keynote speech at the Red Hat Summit Connect 2025, PD Dr. Matthias Stürmer, Professor at the Bern University of Applied Sciences and Head of the Institute for Digital Sustainability at the University of Bern, demonstrated that many things are unlikely to work today without open source solutions. According to recent surveys, 96.6 percent of companies use some form of open source software. But that's not all: Switzerland is also a country with a high production rate of open source software. However, the road to using and programming open source solutions is a rocky one, especially in public administrations. The new Federal Act on the Use of Electronic Means for the Performance of Official Duties (EMBAG) has only been in force for a year. This contains a separate article on the subject of open source, which states that software developed by the authorities (and using taxpayers' money) should be made available to the general public - i.e. companies and private individuals. Furthermore, Swiss providers should be given preference in procurement. In order to create an overview and more transparency in the "open source jungle", an open source directory (www.ossdirectory.com), a "Wikipedia of open source software", as Matthias Stürmer described it. He concluded by expressing his hope that through solid cooperation between partners and the visualization of success stories, open source solutions will now increasingly find their way into public administrations.
Reist Telecom relies on OpenShift
At the Red Hat Summit, it was announced that Reist Telecom AG is using Red Hat technologies to modernize its IT infrastructure. Reist Telecom AG is a Swiss telecommunications and information technology company with a focus on flexible solutions. Reist offers solutions for private, public and hybrid cloud services, identity and access management (MAYI ID© product suite) as well as network, telecommunications and cyber security services. The company wanted to introduce microservices and containers to better support its customers in their own modernization projects. Reist planned to expand its offerings beyond virtualization to a cloud-native platform, including MAYI ID©, which is available both as a managed service and as a stand-alone software-as-a-service solution. The company chose Red Hat OpenShift as a hybrid cloud platform that can be operated both on-premises and at the edge, as greater flexibility and coherence of the underlying platform was required. OpenShift enables Reist to minimize operational overhead by providing a single management interface and greater coherence of the development and operations tools provided. The unified platform and DevOps approach has brought Reist's development and operations teams closer together, improving collaboration and breaking down silos, according to the statement. One example of this is the developers of the MAYI ID© solution, who can now work more closely with the operations teams.
