Red Hat Enhances RHEL and OpenShift with AI Capabilities via 'Lightspeed'

Mon 26th May, 2025

Red Hat has announced significant enhancements to its Linux distribution, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and its container management platform, OpenShift, introducing AI functionalities through a new tool named Lightspeed. This innovative feature allows users to access documentation, guides, and practical tips via an AI-powered chatbot. Beyond simply retrieving general information, Lightspeed is capable of providing customized assistance by responding to queries regarding specific Kubernetes clusters. Users can also enrich Lightspeed with proprietary knowledge during the technical preview phase.

In addition to Lightspeed, Red Hat has made strides in its AI initiatives, incorporating the Llama technology originally developed by Meta into its Red Hat AI offerings. This development is complemented by the introduction of the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which aims to standardize architecture in agent-based AI systems, enabling language models to interact with files, APIs, and various tools seamlessly. Furthermore, Red Hat AI is now accessible on the Google Cloud Marketplace, alongside existing availability on AWS and Azure.

The company also unveiled the Red Hat Edge Manager, a new tool designed to manage edge devices and their applications effectively. This software enables administrators to manage multiple Kubernetes clusters as a single unit, ensuring secure communication with devices through mTLS (mutual Transport Layer Security). The management of hardware will utilize FIDO Device Onboarding for secure integration. Initially released as a technical preview, the Edge Manager is built on Red Hat Device Edge, a tailored version of RHEL optimized for infrastructure operations beyond traditional data centers.

Red Hat's aspirations extend to the automotive sector as well. The company has been developing an operating system for software-defined vehicles (SDVs), where critical automotive functionalities are delivered via software. The foundation for this initiative is the Red Hat Device Edge, and the company is already equipped with relevant certifications to ensure compliance with the safety standards required for road vehicles. A full-fledged version of the operating system for SDVs is anticipated to be showcased in the fall of 2025.

Additionally, during its recent conference, Red Hat formally announced the release of RHEL 10. This latest iteration of the Linux distribution introduces an 'Image Mode' feature that allows system administrators to update their systems with minimal downtime. The development team has also integrated new encryption standards designed to withstand the capabilities of quantum computing. Moreover, Red Hat has introduced a virtual inference server specifically for deploying trained AI models within Kubernetes containers.


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