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OpenStack 2026.2 “Hibiscus” Strengthens Trusted Infrastructure for the AI Era

OpenStack Hibiscus Release video ImageOpenStack 2026.2 (Hibiscus), the 34th release of the world’s most widely deployed open source cloud infrastructure software, is now available. Hibiscus strengthens OpenStack as trusted infrastructure for increasingly demanding workloads, advancing confidential computing and security while expanding support for accelerated, high-performance infrastructure.

Around 600 contributors collaborated during the six-month Hibiscus development cycle, a 21% increase from OpenStack 2026.1 Gazpacho. Together, they delivered 11,500 code changes, a 28% increase release over release. During the same cycle, the OpenDev Zuul continuous integration system ran approximately 1.6 million jobs to build, test and publish software across the OpenStack ecosystem.

Release Notes & Source Code | OpenStack Project Map | OpenInfra Live Episode

How OpenStack 2026.2 Hibiscus Advances Trusted Infrastructure

The Hibiscus release includes enhancements across OpenStack services that strengthen security and trust, expand support for AI and other compute-intensive workloads, and help operators use infrastructure more efficiently at scale; more cycle highlights can be found here. 

Trusted & Secure Infrastructure

As organizations run increasingly sensitive workloads on shared and distributed infrastructure, Hibiscus expands the tools available to protect workloads, isolate tenants and establish trust in the underlying infrastructure.

Infrastructure for AI & Compute-Intensive Workloads

AI, machine learning and HPC are increasing demand for specialized compute and high-performance storage. Hibiscus expands OpenStack’s ability to expose, manage and efficiently use these resources as part of a programmable infrastructure layer.

More Efficient Infrastructure at Scale

Hibiscus introduces improvements across compute, networking and image management designed to help operators get more from their existing infrastructure while simplifying large-scale operations.

Security Backed by an Open Development Process

Trusted infrastructure is not only about individual security features. It is also about how the software is developed, tested and maintained. During the Hibiscus development cycle, OpenDev Zuul ran approximately 1.6 million CI jobs to build, test and publish software across the OpenStack ecosystem. Over the past five years, Zuul has run more than 14.2 million jobs supporting OpenStack development.

Security researchers and OpenStack contributors have also worked together to identify and address vulnerabilities, and at the center of that work is the OpenStack Vulnerability Management Team (VMT), which coordinates the responsible handling and disclosure of security vulnerabilities across OpenStack. OpenStack, like many other open source projects, has had an influx of contribution from security researchers: 42 OpenStack Security Advisories (OSSAs) issued so far this year along with 13 OpenStack Security Notes (OSSNs). As always, the OpenStack Vulnerability Management team ensures that security issues are handled punctually and discretely.

The VMT thanks these 70+ contributors for assisting in making OpenStack more secure.

 

A Flexible Upgrade Path for Operators

OpenStack Hibiscus is a non-SLURP release. The Skip Level Upgrade Release Process gives operators the option to upgrade once per year rather than every six months while maintaining OpenStack’s predictable six-month release cadence.

Operators running OpenStack 2026.1 Gazpacho, the previous SLURP release, can choose to skip Hibiscus and upgrade directly to OpenStack 2027.1 Indri, expected in March 2027.

 Contributor List

Thank you to almost 600 contributors who contributed to the OpenStack Hibiscus release. 

 

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