AI Infrastructure in the Age of Sovereignty: Requirements, Strategies and a Trusted Framework for Digital Embassies
Artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure is increasingly becoming a strategic concern – rather than a purely technological one – due to geopolitical tensions, intricate financing structures and the digitization of public services. Meanwhile, the growing demand for compute and data storage is adding further complexity to the landscape. To address this and ensure resilience, economies should shape their AI infrastructure choices around flexibility and future readiness.
Artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure is increasingly becoming a strategic concern – rather than a purely technological one – due to geopolitical tensions, intricate financing structures and the digitization of public services. Meanwhile, the growing demand for compute and data storage is adding further complexity to the landscape. To address this and ensure resilience, economies should shape their AI infrastructure choices around flexibility and future readiness.
Written by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with Bain & Company, AI Infrastructure in the Age of Sovereignty: Requirements, Strategies and a Trusted Framework for Digital Embassies explores how economies can design sovereign AI infrastructure strategies by balancing domestic ownership with trusted international partnerships. It outlines the core building blocks of AI infrastructure, examines the non-negotiable prerequisites required to develop, sustain and scale each building block, and introduces an AI sovereignty spectrum to help economies design resilient strategies suited to their local capabilities.
The paper also explores digital embassies as an emerging sovereign AI infrastructure option. Through a Global Framework for Innovative and Trusted Digital Embassies, it sets out the key dimensions along which trust needs to be created for such an arrangement.