Application delivery and security provider strengthens collaboration to drive secure, scalable cloud native innovation

Key Highlights:

F5 has elevated its membership to Gold within the CNCF, strengthening its commitment to open source cloud native innovation.The upgrade broadens F5's collaboration on key projects like OpenTelemetry, Kubernetes Ingress and Gateway API, enhancing secure networking, application delivery and AI-driven observability in the ecosystem.F5 is committed to fostering and supporting cloud native innovation by enhancing the security and scalability of Kubernetes and multicloud infrastructures within the CNCF, including resources for complex AI inference workloads.AMSTERDAM, March 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The Cloud Native Computing Foundation® (CNCF®), which builds sustainable ecosystems for cloud native software, today announced that F5 has upgraded its membership to Gold, reinforcing its commitment to advancing open source cloud native technologies.

F5, a provider in hybrid multicloud application delivery and security, is broadening its involvement in the CNCF community to foster and support cloud native innovation. The company is the corporate sponsor of NGINX and is a contributor to CNCF projects, including OpenTelemetry, Kubernetes Ingress and Gateway API innovations. By further investing in the CNCF, F5 is enhancing secure networking for Kubernetes while improving the visibility and reliability of cloud native infrastructures worldwide.

"Expanding to Gold Membership in the CNCF reflects our dedication to fostering innovation and collaboration in the cloud native ecosystem," said Kunal Anand, chief product officer at F5. "F5 holds a deep heritage of open source from its careful stewardship of the NGINX project. With the CNCF, we aim to empower organizations with the tools they need to deliver not only today's workloads but openly develop the tools for delivering modern AI-workloads on Kubernetes which the CNCF has reported as being the standard AI platform. This aligns with our broader vision to simplify the complexities of modern application infrastructures."

F5 brings deep expertise in delivering cloud native solutions for networking, security and AI-driven observability. Key contributions include involvement in refining Kubernetes Ingress and Gateway API standards, enhancing service mesh capabilities using tools such as Istio and spearheading real-time application telemetry projects. These efforts drive secure and seamless integrations across multicloud environments, as demonstrated in real-world use cases involving secure low-latency application delivery for global enterprises and service providers.

"Inference relies on scalable infrastructure, which is a fundamentally cloud native challenge enabled by CNCF technologies," said Jonathan Bryce, executive director, CNCF. "It's exciting to see F5 increase their investment into the ecosystem, as their leadership on projects like NGINX, Gateway API, and OpenTelemetry is necessary for delivering secure, scalable AI inference workloads reliably to production."

As a CNCF Gold Member, F5 joins a global network of industry leaders driving the future of cloud native computing. CNCF Gold Membership enables closer collaboration on key projects and initiatives, helping advance innovation across open source infrastructure, cloud platforms, and emerging technologies like AI and edge computing.

To become a CNCF member, visit: https://www.cncf.io/membership-hub/

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Learn About the CNCF End User CommunityAbout Cloud Native Computing Foundation

Cloud native computing empowers organizations to build and run scalable applications with an open source software stack in public, private, and hybrid clouds. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) hosts critical components of the global technology infrastructure, including Kubernetes, Prometheus, and Envoy. CNCF brings together the industry's top developers, end users, and vendors and runs the largest open source developer conferences in the world. Supported by nearly 800 members, including the world's largest cloud computing and software companies, as well as over 200 innovative startups, CNCF is part of the nonprofit Linux Foundation. For more information, please visit www.cncf.io.

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SOURCE Cloud Native Computing Foundation