Digital sovereignty is all the rage in Europe. How does it define it?

Europe awarded four “sovereign” cloud providers €180 million ($209 million) in contracts last month to supply its institutions. None of the vendors achieved “full digital sovereignty” under its sovereign-defining SEAL framework, and one relies on hyperscaler Google Cloud to offer its services.

The contracts reflected both a growing focus on digital sovereignty across European capitals and in enterprise boardrooms – and the struggle to define what sovereignty really means in a world of heavily globalised supply chains.

“Most of the CIOs I’m meeting have sovereignty at the top of their agenda,” says Capgemini’s Chief Operations and Delivery Officer Karine Brunet: “There’s a broad question [in most organisations] about how do you ensure independence of the company going forward and protect your assets.”