You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Spanish. (September 2023)Click [show] for important translation instructions.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 1,126 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Spanish Wikipedia article at [[:es:Soberanía tecnológica]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|es|Soberanía tecnológica}} to the talk page.
Technological sovereignty is a political outlook where information and communications infrastructure and technology critical for competitiveness and welfare is aligned to the laws, needs and interests of the jurisdiction in which users are located.[1][2]Data sovereignty or information sovereignty sometimes overlaps with technological sovereignty, since their distinctions are not clear, and also refer to subjective information about the laws of the country in which the data subject is a citizen, or the information is stored or flows through, whatever its form, including when it has been converted and stored in binary digital form.[1][3] Technological sovereignty is considered distinct from autarky and deglobalization, as it only seeks to avoid full dependencies on critical technologies.[2][4]
In the Post–Cold War era, the concept of technological sovereignty has gained popularity due to a number of world events highlighting the vulnerability of technological dependence.
In 1964, Pierre Cognard of France's General Delegation for Scientific and Technical Research[fr] wrote "Certainly it would be absurd to systematically oppose oneself to the introduction into a country of a foreign firm which brings in a superior technology and thus contributes to economic progress.… Nevertheless, we do not see how a Nation could maintain its political independence if such penetration becomes generalized."[5][6]
Supply chain disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic served as a wake-up call for nations to decrease their dependence on oversea supply chains as factory closures, transportation disruptions and export controls all contributed to unavailability of important imports.[8] Meanwhile, countries that did have adequate supplies limited exports of those supplies.[9]
Sanctions
US sanctions against China as well as the Made in China 2025 policy have accelerated the desire for technological sovereignty for China and the United States, but also for other economic blocks.[10]
Following the 2025 United States tariffs against the European Union, fear of overreliance on US cloud providers such as Microsoft 365 en Google Workspace increased.[14] According to Nextcloud, one of the one of the foremost alternatives to replace them, during the first 5 months of 2025, customer interest in the software had tripled.[15] Some governmental organisations including the European Data Protection Supervisor and the German state of Schleswig-Holstein have since switched from Microsoft's Sharepoint to Nextcloud.[16] In 2020, French president Emmanuel Macron stated "If we don’t build our own champions in all areas — digital, artificial intelligence — our choices will be dictated by others."[17] In 2023, the EU passed the Chips Act to encourage semiconductor production,[18] followed in 2024 by the Artificial Intelligence Act regulating AI technology.[19] In 2024, a coalition of academics and policy-makers called for limiting EU's dependence on foreign technology by investing in European cloud digital infrastructure, under an initiative labelled EuroStack.[18]
Limitations
In outsourcing and lack of suitable human capital may hinder efforts to achieve technological sovereignty.[20] In the past, striving for technological sovereignty has led to convergence to a small number of technologies, which can lead to technologies outside of the scope of technological sovereignty to be neglected. Policies aimed at technological sovereignty may also attract lobbying for broad state subsidies and protectionist policies.[9]
↑ Limited, Palgrave Macmillan (2000). Globalization and Its Critics: Perspectives from Political Economy. International Political Economy Ser. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. ISBN978-1-137-07588-8.{{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
