Matrix takes sovereign messaging into the realm of the tech giants

Decentralized messaging platform Matrix is no longer the upstart it once was. The organization is now a serious challenger to the status quo as concerns about sovereignty and independence reach new heights.

At the organization's recent Malmo event, which grew attendance 30 percent year-on-year, the mood shifted from "yes, this is important" to "yes, we're rolling this out."

Matrix is an open standard for communication. It's a federated system, so there are no central hubs or overseas control to worry about, and it can be used for anything from messaging to voice over IP. Video is also supported.

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The system is an alternative to services such as Microsoft Teams. It has become popular in the public sector as governments grow increasingly wary of relying on US tech giants for services that the Trump administration could switch off at will.

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However, that increased interest and subsequent roll-outs have brought a level of scrutiny Matrix was not fully prepared for. A recent report regarding anonymous reaction to a roll-out of the technology by the European Commission took Element - the company that puts the lion share of the money into Matrix - by surprise.

One attendee at the Malmo conference observed, "First they [competitors] ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you."

Matrix remains an open standard, however, the open source foundation behind it would certainly welcome more paying members.

"It's true that we're definitely getting more attention than we have had before," said Element CEO Matthew Hodgson.

"We are seeing Matrix ending up on the critical path of digital sovereignty as almost the poster child of the whole thing.

"I'm not sure that we necessarily do want to be the poster child," he added, "We didn't sign up to end up being ambassadors for digital sovereignty, roaming from government to government, but empirically that's where we've ended up, and yeah, that's going to attract attention from people who would rather everyone just kept in their traditional big tech systems."

This comes amid worries about the reliability of international partners, from early projects including France's Tchap messenger for the public sector and Germany's BundesMessenger through to more recent users, such as the Swedish public sector. Indeed, in one memorable demonstration during the Matrix event, messages were sent between French, Swedish, and NATO entities.

"I cannot overstate the strangeness," Hodgson added, "of having various national militaries phoning up every couple of days, saying, 'Look, we need to get on board Matrix too because we need to talk to this country and they're using Matrix, and we need to talk to that country, and they're using Matrix.'"

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"It could be for defense, could be national security, could just be healthcare or education, public sector. But that is real. That is why there is a feeding frenzy."

Not that Element or Matrix is trying to build a better Teams than Teams. Patrick Alberts, Element's Chief Product Officer, said, "This is a digitally sovereign communication solution that, by and large, works like Teams in many aspects, but it's not set out to be the faster Porsche here..."

As for the reported complaints from the European Commission over Element's software implementation, Diana Gheorghe, EC head of sector for Communication and Collaboration Services, addressed them directly and described the anonymous complaints as "the natural friction of [a] high-profile rollout that we have done at scale."

Alexandru Vignide, EC service manager for Communication and Collaboration Services, who is very much at the  pointy end of making the sovereign communication tools work, noted the speed of the rollout, which began with a proof of concept in Q4 2025, and hit laptops between July and September 2026.

The EC chose the Schengen Cloud Alliance (which includes OVHcloud) for hosting and, according to Vignide, "We wanted to provide a familiar experience for users." Not everyone is impressed with what is rolling out, but it's important to remember that change can be alarming, and this is still early days.

It is, however, a significant one. Gheorghe said that, as well as increasing resilience and business continuity, "We wanted to have vendor diversity. We also wanted to have data control and ownership of the platform."

Microsoft, as an example, would point to the sovereign capabilities of its system. As the Matrix conference kicked off, it announced new capabilities, including additional options for running AI, data services, and confidential workloads on customer-controlled platforms, and highlighted its sovereign partner ecosystem for customers who prefer local expertise.

However, Microsoft (and other tech giants) cannot escape concerns about who ultimately controls the data and what administrations might do with it. In 2025, a Microsoft representative memorably confirmed the US giant "cannot guarantee" data sovereignty to customers in France.

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There is, however, a fly in the Matrix ointment. The platform is open source and, like so many open source projects, requires funding. Right now, Element accounts for much of the Matrix Foundation's funding. Hodgson finds this a little frustrating.

"If every government who is operationally dependent on Matrix put the smallest amount of money in the Foundation, the Foundation would have enough money to really start investing in the ecosystem and not be dependent on Element basically picking up the tab."

He acknowledged that things had improved in the last year, but said, "It's not good governance for an open standard to have one big player like Element effectively propping things up."

This isn't uncommon in the open source world, and it's a little disappointing given the ever-increasing importance placed on sovereignty in communications. Alberts commented: "There is confusion in the market that the thing somehow creates itself.

"No, it doesn't. It requires hardworking people. These hardworking people need to be paid, and that payment, in order to support government deployments going forward, ideally also comes from these governments. And some of them do a lot and do it in a great way, and that's amazing.