Digital Sovereignty Is National — And It’s Personal | Shimmy Says Ep. 43

Digital sovereignty isn't abstract anymore. It's national and it's personal. Hey everyone, it's shimmy, and welcome to this special Friday edition of Shimmy.

Says, you know, if you're caught by Shimmy, says yesterday, it was rather tame, it was geeky. It's about DevOps, the never ending story. Something near and dear to me.

But I wanna speak today about something maybe a little spicier, and it is near and dear to me too. I call this Shimmy says, episode digital sovereignty is national sovereignty, and digital sovereignty is personal sovereignty. So let me tell you something here.

If you were paying attention to the news lady lately, especially coming outta Davos this week, so much coming outta Davos, so much of it was nonsense. But there was one phrase that kept coming out over and over, and one topic that kept being harped on digital sovereignty. Whether we were talking about sovereign AI or sovereign cloud, sovereign data, sovereign semiconductors, digital sovereignty, and really digital sovereignty has become a code word for independence, for not being reliant on any one partner.

You know, I, I thought the, uh, the Prime Minister of Canada, his speech on, on sovereignty and independence and building fortresses and variable geometry was probably one of the speeches. It should go down in history. It's a great speech, but it really at its heart was about sovereignty.

National sovereignty. Every country needs to be able to be self-sustainable and not dependent on any one other country. They've gotta be free to make their choices that's best for their own country, but working together for the good of the world.

You know, a few years ago, the whole digital, so sovereignty thing sounded like policy speak, but today, I'm telling you my friends, it's kitchen table conversation for world leaders and it's kitchen table conversation for you. Because digital sovereignty is national sovereignty and digital sovereignty is personal sovereignty. It's about your freedom, about your privacy, about who controls you.

And this didn't happen by accident. What we're seeing going on right now in this world is a reckoning. Countries are waking up to the fact that their digital future and their digital future is their, is their future there?

There is no separating digital future from the rest of your future. It is your future. They're realizing that they can't sit entirely in someone else's house anymore, frankly, especially when that house is halfway across the world and there's a crazy landlord that keeps changing the rules.

You know what I'm talking about and who I'm talking about? AI isn't some science project anymore. It's in production.

It's running economies. It's shaping defense strategy. Data isn't just data.

It's leverage. It's the lifeblood and the cloud. The clouds become something more strategic than oil shipping lane, or who ships and missiles controlled the damn straits or ous or wherever are oils coming from these days.

You know, a Davo, a Davos, no one was asking whether digital sovereignty matters that ship sailed, that train left the station. They were asking, how fast can we get there? How fast can we be independent?

How soon can we not be at the, at the beck and call at the behest of some master we don't want to be serving? And what happens if we can't get there? What happens if we can't get there?

Europe is rethinking its dependence on hyperscalers, it's rethinking, its dependence on AI models. It's dependence on on foundries and, and chip makers. It's very digital independence is what's at stake.

And it's not just Europe, it's the whole world. Governments are very, are suddenly very interested in where their data sleeps at night and AI that's gone from innovation, nice to have to existential, must have. That's the moment we're in right now.

That's the moment we're in right now. I'm going to open up here, you know, like that, that shimmy isn't always opened up, but I'm going to get personal and vulnerable with you right here. I get it.

I understand why digital sovereignty is necessary in today's crazy world. I do. I really do.

I think you do too. But it makes me incredibly sad. It makes me sad.

It makes me sad for the world order and the stability that I grew up believing in that gave so many people rise above poverty, rise above hunger, created the biggest middle class and probably the most peaceful, peaceful time in the history of humanity. I'm sad that we are look, seem to be losing that I'm sad for the internet that I saw blossom before my eyes as this big beautiful equalizer that let me talk to anyone anywhere in the world. From China to Australia, to Singapore, to Europe, to my friends in Marrakesh, Morocco.

It made the world smaller. It made the world better. It made the world not meaner.

You realize it really was a small world after all. It made the world better. I'm sad that early dream, maybe it was naive, sure, right?

As a child of Star Trek, that we could actually reach out for the stars together. That technology would help us bridge culture, help us bridge differences, build something bigger than just borders and flags for a little while there. You know what?

It sure felt real. It had me fooled. Probably had you fooled too.

We grew up believing this. If you're at that age, gen X boomer, but let's not kid ourselves. From the in, from the moment the internet went commercial, some governments knew exactly how dangerous it was.

It wasn't dangerous to their people. It was dangerous to them to themselves. 'cause if your citizens can see how other people live, if they can compare notes, if they can realize that things don't have to be the way you tell them they do, then that's a problem.

Especially if you're a tyrant. Because once people see what's possible elsewhere, tyrants don't last very long. I'm reminded of Thomas Friedman and Flat Earth book.

Everybody wants to live an American lifestyle. They may not want to be an American, especially today, but they wanna live the American dream. And there's nothing to matter with that.

So what did these tyrants do? They built walls. They did what tyrants always did.

Today, those walls are firewalls and filters and walled gardens, call it whatever you want. But they locked it down to hold onto power. And soon as people rise up, the first thing they do is they lock it down even tighter.

We see it in China. We saw it in Iran this past couple weeks. But you know what other countries, they didn't lock it down.

And when their people saw what was possible, when they saw the freedom, the opportunity, a different way of life that could be possible, governments fell. And history changed. I was a child of the Cold War.

I saw the Berlin Wall come down. I saw, I saw the new world order come together. And you know who brought it about regular people, individuals yearning for what we all yearn for.

Food, freedom, privacy, safety, freedom. And for a brief shining moment, it seemed that this changed the internet and this stuff. It changed everything and it made all of that within the grasp of the seven or 8 billion people in this world.

But those days, they seem to be fading fast right now, I'll be honest. And that makes me sad. As the world pulls back from a shared global order and we slide into something that seems more fragmented, more balkanized, our digital lives, excuse me, our digital lives are getting chopped up right along with it.

We've got different cloud, we're gonna have different clouds, different AI stacks, different rules, different internets. Even if nobody wants to say this part out loud, here's the uncomfortable truth. And I can't say the reasons they're doing this are wrong, but we're on.

We're gonna be or we're gonna be lesser for it. Worse for it. Some nations are doing this because they don't want their supply chains held hostage.

I can't blame 'em. Fair enough. Others want to protect their citizens from foreign laws that don't reflect their values.

Again, makes sense to me. And some look at this and say, this is about national security. This is about our very survival as a people, as a nation.

And they're not wrong either. However, it doesn't make me any less sad for what we're losing in this bargain. But I'm not blind to the what's going on and why, why it's happening, it's history.

It's more this is humanity. So I accept it in this new ever era. Every nation has to have the right to build its own digital fortress.

As I said before, Mark Carney, the PM of uh, Canada. He said it straight sovereignty now means resilience. But let me put it even play it planer.

Digital sovereignty today is national sovereignty. You can't be a sovereign nation if you don't have control over your digital sovereignty. But wait, I'm not done.

'cause there's more. 'cause here's the part that doesn't get said in all of this. Digital sovereignty, national sovereignty talk as important it is as it is for the nations of this world.

To control their ai, to control their infrastructure, to control their data is just as important for you and me to control ours. Digital sovereignty isn't just national. Digital sovereignty is personal.

And that's why I say digital sovereignty is national sovereignty. And digital sovereignty is personal sovereignty 'cause it is personal. Every individual, it's a human right, deserves control over their digital footprint.

It's their data, their privacy, their independence. You shouldn't be under constant surveillance unless you actually have done something to warrant it. Period end.

If you decide, if you decide, and it has to be, you decide to give up some of that sovereignty for convenience because of some apps or services or shiny features you want to use. Hey, that's your call. I may not like it.

I may not agree with it. I think you're making a mistake. But it'll be your decision, not anyone else's.

It should never be someone else's decision. Not your government, not a foreign governments, not some platforms decision, certainly not some algorithms decision in this fractured digital future that we seem to be speeding off to. Sovereignty can't stop the borders.

It has to extend all the way down to an individual, to a bubble around each individual. So yes, digital sovereignty is national sovereignty, but don't let it get you that twisted. Digital sovereignty is personal sovereignty too, and every single one of us is entitled to it.

And that's what SHI says. Have a great weekend everyone. Jimmy says.