The cloud is the new frontier of digital sovereignty, Pg13

Key Highlights:

• Nayara Energy, an Indian oil refining company, faced potential disruption of Microsoft cloud services due to US sanctions related to its Russian shareholder, Rosneft.
• The incident highlighted India's dependence on foreign-owned digital infrastructure like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, which are subject to foreign laws.
• India has developed an impressive Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) stack, including Aadhaar, UPI, DigiLocker, ABDM, and ONDC.
• The article suggests four levers to reduce strategic vulnerability: data localization, domestic cloud capability, DPI substitution for AI, and DPI partnerships with other countries.

Detailed Insights:

• The Nayara Energy episode exposed the risk of relying on foreign digital infrastructure, where terms can change based on geopolitical factors.
• While India's DPI stack is open and interoperable, it largely runs on foreign-owned cloud infrastructure, creating a form of digital tenancy.
• Large Language Models (LLMs), crucial for enterprise operations and government services, are primarily controlled by US and Chinese companies, raising concerns about data and values.
• Data localization, requiring data to reside within India, is insufficient without operational sovereignty, including auditing and takeover capabilities.
• Developing a credible domestic cloud capability, like Megh-Raj, is essential to ensure a sovereign fallback for critical workloads.
• Extending the DPI substitution logic to AI can lead to the development of Indian models for key sectors like agriculture, health, and education.
• India's DPI partnerships with countries in the Global South can establish an alternative digital order with collective rule-setting.

Key Concepts Involved:

• Digital Sovereignty: A nation's ability to control its digital infrastructure, data, and online activities within its borders.
• Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI): Open and interoperable digital systems built by a country to serve its citizens, like India's Aadhaar and UPI.
• Data Localization: The practice of requiring data about a country's citizens to be stored within that country's borders.