**Confidential Containers Joins CNCF as an Incubating Project, Advancing Data-in-Use Protection**
*Posted on July 22, 2026 by CNCF Staff*
The CNCF Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) has officially voted to accept Confidential Containers as a CNCF incubating project. This milestone marks a significant step in bringing hardware-backed security to cloud-native environments, providing organizations with a robust solution to protect sensitive data while it is actively being processed.
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## About Confidential Containers
Confidential Containers is designed to address a critical gap in cloud security: protecting data **in use**. While data at rest and in transit are commonly encrypted, information in memory is often vulnerable. The project leverages hardware-based Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) to encrypt data during computation, ensuring that even cloud infrastructure providers cannot access the processed data.
Originally launched as an open-source initiative in 2021 through a collaboration between Red Hat, Intel, IBM, and other key industry players, Confidential Containers brings confidential computing capabilities into the Kubernetes ecosystem. Built on Kata Containers runtime, the project abstracts complex TEE functionality into standard Kubernetes workflows, enabling secure workloads on public clouds, private clouds, and hybrid infrastructures without operational complexity.
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## Key Milestones and Ecosystem Growth
Since joining the CNCF Sandbox, Confidential Containers has achieved substantial progress with strong backing from major technology organizations and cloud providers, including Microsoft Azure, Intel, AMD, IBM, NVIDIA, Alibaba, and Red Hat.
The project’s current achievements include:
– Over **1,000 GitHub stars** across core repositories
– More than **1,200 merged pull requests** across 26 repository groups
– Over **1,500 historical and active tracking issues**
– A community of **150+ active contributors** from hardware vendors, hyperscale cloud providers, and security research institutions
– More than **15 engineering lifecycle releases**
Confidential Containers is also advancing integration with Kubernetes infrastructure and automation tools like Kyverno, and is being integrated into KServe to support confidential AI inference workloads.
> “The Confidential Containers community has successfully transformed TEE-backed security from a niche research interest into a robust, production-ready foundation for sensitive Kubernetes workloads. By joining CNCF, we secure the neutral, open governance required to set the industry standard for privacy-preserving infrastructure.”
> — **Ariel Adam**, Maintainer, Confidential Containers
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## Core Components
Confidential Containers is made up of several essential components:
– **Confidential Containers Pods:** Enables deployment of unmodified containers across TEEs using standard Kubernetes Pod resources.
– **Trustee:** A scalable attestation service that verifies the integrity of TEE-enabled nodes and workloads before issuing secrets or cryptographic keys.
– **Helm Charts & Controllers:** Automates lifecycle management and orchestration of confidential workloads across diverse TEE environments.
– **Hardware Abstraction Layer:** Provides compatibility with multiple TEE technologies, including Intel® TDX and AMD SEV-SNP, preventing vendor lock-in.
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## Roadmap Overview
The project’s roadmap is divided into short-term and long-term goals:
– **Short-term (2–6 months):** Focus on delivering a stable, easy-to-deploy end-to-end solution, managed through dedicated GitHub projects for releases and Trustee development.
– **Mid-to-long-term (6–18 months):** Prioritize use-case-driven development, ensuring reliable support for real-world applications with strong CI/CD integration.
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## FAQ
**What problem does Confidential Containers solve?**
Confidential Containers protects data while it is actively being processed (data in use) by using Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), addressing a security gap not covered by traditional encryption methods.
**How does it integrate with Kubernetes?**
It extends Kubernetes by integrating confidential computing capabilities directly into the runtime, allowing secure workloads to be managed using standard Kubernetes workflows.
**Which hardware platforms are supported?**
The project supports multiple TEE technologies, including Intel TDX and AMD SEV-SNP, through a hardware abstraction layer.
**Who is behind the project?** Confidential Containers was initiated as an open-source collaboration between Red Hat, Intel, IBM, and other industry partners, and now has a broad ecosystem of contributors and supporters.
**What is next for Confidential Containers?**
The project is advancing toward stable, production-ready releases, deepening integration with Kubernetes and cloud-native tools, and enabling confidential AI and enterprise workloads at scale.
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## Conclusion
The CNCF incubation of Confidential Containers represents a major milestone for data-in-use security within the cloud native landscape. By combining hardware-based trusted execution with Kubernetes-native workflows, the project lowers the barrier to securely running sensitive applications in shared and public environments. With strong industry backing, an active open-source community, and a clear roadmap, Confidential Containers is well-positioned to become the foundational standard for privacy-preserving infrastructure. As organizations increasingly prioritize security and privacy, this project delivers a timely and essential capability for the future of cloud native computing.
