Canonical is the private company behind Ubuntu, the world’s most popular open-source operating system. Founded by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical's mission is to make open-source software available to everyone for free, while earning revenue by providing commercial support, security maintenance, and engineering services to large enterprises. While individual users know them for the Ubuntu Desktop, Canonical is a giant in the cloud world—powering the majority of the public cloud workloads (on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) and providing infrastructure for AI, IoT, and robotics.