»Sovereignty means keeping your choices open«

Richard Davies, UK Country Managing Partner, on why the answer to digital sovereignty isn’t to build everything from scratch, but to keep your options open.

 

Digital sovereignty has leapt up the agenda of many European countries’ politics. But too often, says Richard Davies, who leads Netcompany’s UK business, it’s framed as one of two extremes: dependence on a handful of tech giants, or building and hosting everything domestically. 

His view is more pragmatic. »Digital sovereignty is fundamentally about choice,« he says.

Why now

The topic of digital sovereignty has come into sharp focus as international relations have strained and traditional alliances have been tested in the post pandemic world. 

»You can see that the old order that’s existed since the Second World War is changing,« says Richard. 

He mentions how, over the past year, several governments have restricted access to digital services for foreign businesses and individuals. The UK hasn’t yet been affected, but Richard says the perspective of those in power is clear: »dependency on infrastructure you don’t control is seen as a national resilience risk.« 

»Many of our systems rely on global technology, for very good reasons,« he says. »It’s good technology.« 

But reliance on these systems at a time of shifting international relations leaves countries exposed to a range of worrying scenarios. At one extreme is the so-called »kill switch«, where a foreign supplier is forced by its government to withhold services to another state. At the other is something more benign but still concerning: a loss of bargaining power in a relationship with a supplier that knows it’s essential to the nation’s critical national infrastructure. In between sit fiscal shock if a key supplier raises its prices, and cybersecurity concerns. 

The binary perspective

For sovereignty purists, a country should build, own and control everything itself. Richard thinks this option is a mirage for many nations. Funding, skills and the political will to develop major infrastructure are all factors. »In addition, is it even feasible given the transformation headaches?« asks Richard.

Narrower efforts are different. A challenger in a specific part of critical national infrastructure is well within reach of a country with »amazing universities and amazing technical talent«, and he’d like to see more asked of why so many promising British start-ups end up leaving. With a constrained public purse, »the choice of where we want to play becomes hugely important«. 

The alternative, Richard argues, is pragmatism: a deliberate, risk-based approach to managing where control genuinely matters. It isn’t about eliminating dependence altogether, but about »understanding risk, reducing exposure and preserving strategic choice«.

Choice and transparency

Research commissioned by Netcompany suggests the UK public agrees. Some 69% see digital sovereignty as a matter of national security, yet only 10% want the country to be technologically self-sufficient. Two thirds (67%) would choose technology that is slightly more expensive but easier to switch away from. 

»Choice is extremely important. In finance you’d call it optionality: if you don’t like one option, you use another, and there shouldn’t be a penalty for that,« he says. »This is about building systems that enable you to trade or enable you to do citizen-facing work, but with the ability to change without it being prohibitive or a material risk.« 

Our polling suggests that 73% of the public think government should know how it would replace a critical supplier before signing a major contract. 

Building in the way out

The most useful capability any government department can have, Richard argues, is »the ability to change its tech without it being painful«. That means favouring modular, open source and loosely coupled systems over proprietary technology maintained by a single vendor. Treat infrastructure, applications and data as separate decisions rather than a bundle from one provider. 

Take the NHS screening programme, a five-year partnership Netcompany is working on in the UK, covering all seven national adult cancer screening services. At every step, Richard explains, the system will be built with security, data, accessibility and future-proofing in mind. Developed using open source and reusable elements, the NHS will decide where it runs. 

»It all comes back to choice. Whether something runs on public cloud or on premise is a secondary consideration for us,« he says. »The important thing is that we can do both.« 

Richard believes that systems built for government should be owned by government, so there’s no IP lock-in. Re-use matters: »If you can reuse platforms that are scalable, robust and resilient, you are automatically reducing  the risk of failure.«

Where AI fits in

The shift in international relations has coincided with a huge acceleration in AI development, with the industry witnessing new highs in accelerated cycles of change. 

This means digital sovereignty is often viewed through the lens of AI: which models are being used, where the data centres are built, who owns the data the models are fed? But Richard is eager to point out that questions of sovereignty are important across a nation’s tech stack. 

»Not all systems are run by AI,« says Richard. »The lion’s share of the systems we might deem a risk have nothing to do with it.«

»Not all systems are run by AI,« says Richard. »The lion’s share of the systems we might deem a risk have nothing to do with it.«

A sovereignty checklist

Richard likes the idea of a digital sovereignty checklist, or an audit, department by department, of which risks actually need managing: loss of access, exposure to geopolitical shocks, or cost volatility from a supplier that knows it has you locked in. 

»The answer won’t be the same for every department or system,« he says. »Nor should it be.« 

Procurement should then follow. Richard’s shorthand is »buy broad« rather than »buy British«. Governments shouldn’t simply turn to domestic companies, as they may lack the skills, scale and capabilities to deliver. Instead, they should look to collaborative partners who reinvest in local people and the economy by bringing domestic SMEs into their supply chains. 

Today, he says, procurement doesn’t tick those boxes consistently across government. »That’s an opportunity.« 

Who to work with

Europe already has most of what most governments would otherwise have to build from scratch: proven platforms, reliable suppliers and a familiar regulatory instinct on data and privacy. European partners who reuse what already exists offer a faster, cheaper route to resilience, and a different proposition to the hyperscalers, without the »too big to fail« baggage. Richard expects the UK’s relationship with Europe to deepen, but he’s clear it needn’t mean turning away from anyone else: »You need the best of all worlds.« 

Richard expects digital sovereignty to filter down into governance frameworks. »It be reflected in a set of criteria that suppliers will need to build to,« he says.  

One thing’s for sure. This is a topic that’s not going anywhere for the foreseeable future. 

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