Digital Sovereignty
Digital Sovereignty Is in the Fine Print
Gabriela Ramos (with Emilija Stojmenova Duh)
For the last decade, the global debate around digital sovereignty has been fought on a geopolitical and corporate chessboard. We talk about it in terms of data centers, indigenous cloud infrastructure, semiconductor supply chains, and the immense monopoly power of Big Tech.
But this heavy, state-and-infrastructure-centric focus misses the ultimate stakeholder: the citizen.
A Public Good That Cannot Speak Your Language - Cognitive Sovereignty: Beyond the Fine Print
Dr Kenechukwu Ikebuaku
Gabriela Ramos and Emilija Stojmenova Duh make an important advance by shifting the debate from data centres and procurement contracts to the citizen. Their provocation rightly argues that sovereignty is about preserving democratic agency, not merely controlling infrastructure. I agree with the diagnosis, and the remedies they propose are necessary. Yet there is a deeper layer, largely invisible in current debates, that lies beneath the fine print and beyond the ownership of infrastructure. I extend the concept of cognitive sovereignty to AI governance, defining it as the capacity of a society to ensure that the intelligence governing its public life can understand its languages, reflect its knowledge, and remain subject to its own human judgment.