Words have meanings. They create narratives that have implications for politics and policy. Yet, the same phrase often has disparate strategic and policy implications. This article discusses one such phrase that’s become quite the rage in technology geopolitics: technological sovereignty. It examines four distinct meanings of this term and investigates their relevance for India.
With technology now at the forefront of international competition, confrontation, and collaboration, “tech sovereignty” has gained currency. Governments often speak of its many variants—digital sovereignty, cyber sovereignty, and, of late, AI sovereignty. Recently, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke about AI sovereignty ahead of the Paris AI Action Summit, equating it with a nation’s ability to train AI talent, retain AI talent, build data centres, and create large language models. The European Commission now has an Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy. Not to be left behind, NVIDIA also uses this term, calling Sovereign AI as a nation’s capability to produce artificial intelligence using its own infrastructure, data, workforce and business networks.
Despite its many offshoots and widespread use, tech sovereignty implies different things to different countries at different times.
