VivoPower Signs Definitive Heads of Agreement with Open

Agreement signed at Sheikh Zayed Museum in Abu Dhabi pairs VivoPower’s powered land and data center infrastructure capabilities with Open Innovation AI’s sovereign AI orchestration and security platform.

The partners see a sovereign AI opportunity of more than 40GW in Europe alone, across government administration, defense, medical, educational and financial services sovereign cloud and will target at least 1GW of capacity over the next three years, with further demand across the GCC and Asia.

VivoPower to lead site development, power procurement and facility operations; Open Innovation AI to provide the orchestration, AI operations and security layer.

Builds on Open Innovation AI’s track record, experience designing, deploying and operating sovereign AI platforms for government and enterprise environments and clients in the UAE.

LONDON, UK / ABU DHABI, UAE, Oct. 21, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- VivoPower PLC (Nasdaq: VIVO) (“VivoPower” or the “Company”), a leading B Corp-certified global developer and owner of powered land and data center infrastructure for AI compute applications, today announced that it has executed definitive heads of agreement (“Agreement”) with Open Innovation AI (“OI”), the UAE-based AI orchestration, operations and security platform company to jointly explore and develop secure sovereign AI Data Centers across the Nordics, Mainland Europe, the GCC and selective countries in Asia.

The Agreement was signed at Sheikh Zayed Museum in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, 21 October 2026, in the presence of senior leadership from both companies. The signing in the UAE capital reflects Abu Dhabi’s growing role as a global hub for sovereign AI, and the ambition of both partners to take that model to new markets.

Demand for AI compute is growing faster than the power, land and platforms available to host it. Governments and enterprises increasingly want capacity that remains under their control, with sovereignty over infrastructure, data, models and AI services, supported by strong cyber security and governance. The collaboration combines VivoPower's expertise in securing power and developing data center infrastructure with Open Innovation AI's orchestration, AI operations and security capabilities.

Under the Agreement, the two companies will work together to originate and deliver AI data center projects with control and security embedded from design to operation. Open Innovation AI brings its Full Stack AI Fabric, combining orchestration and scheduling, AI and ML operations, agentic workflows, agent harness and AI security into one platform. VivoPower brings site sourcing and acquisition, site development, power and facility operations, and local market municipality and sovereign relationships.

What sovereign cloud means

Sovereign cloud is AI and cloud infrastructure that a nation, and the organizations it trusts, can fully control. In a conventional public cloud, data, models and operations can ultimately be subject to foreign jurisdiction, foreign-controlled operators or a single vendor’s technology. A sovereign cloud keeps every critical layer secure under local law and local control:

Sovereign infrastructure: the land, power, buildings and compute are located in-country and owned or controlled by domestic or trusted partners.

Data sovereignty: data is stored and processed within national borders, governed by local law and protected from extraterritorial access.

Operational sovereignty: the platform is run, monitored and supported by trusted local teams, and can operate in private cloud, on-premises or fully air-gapped environments.

Technology sovereignty: governments and enterprises control the software stack, models and security, without lock-in to any single foreign provider or hardware vendor.

Sovereign AI applies these principles across the full AI lifecycle, from GPU orchestration and model training to the AI applications and agents that power public services, critical national infrastructure, defense, healthcare, finance and industry.

A large and growing opportunity

Demand for sovereign AI capacity is accelerating rapidly at a time when sovereigns are realizing they have limited excess power for their own sovereign cloud needs, let alone to allocate to hyperscalers and AI companies. Governments are moving to secure their own compute, and power has become the prerequisite. Without secured, scalable power there can be no sovereign AI, which makes powered land the starting point of every sovereign AI project. In addition, governments need development partners to deliver the AI infrastructure and they need a technology and orchestration partner to deliver the sovereign cloud. Against this backdrop, VivoPower and Open Innovation AI see an initial opportunity of more than 40GW in Europe alone and will target at least 1GW of capacity over the next three years, with further demand across the GCC and Asia. Through VivoPower’s existing assets, Nordic pipeline and sovereign relationships, together with OI’s track record of orchestrating sovereign cloud solutions, the Partnership will seek to become the leading AI sovereign solution for governments in the target jurisdictions.

What the agreement covers

The Agreement sets out the framework for the collaboration. The parties intend to progress individual projects under separate, project-specific agreements, with definitive documentation to follow in due course.

As a first step, VivoPower has partnered with Open Innovation AI to deploy its software solutions, covering orchestration, AI operations and security, across VivoPower’s portfolio and Nordic pipeline.