Why AI Sovereignty Depends on Interoperability Standards

AI sovereignty is a shared concern among leaders at the India’s AI Impact Summit for advanced and emerging economies.
Sovereignty in AI is now exercised through infrastructure design rather than territorial control, with political authority running through the AI stack.
Middle-power countries focus on ensuring AI systems’ integration, governance, auditability, and replacement on national terms to preserve sovereignty.
Proprietary systems can lead to vendor lock-in, whereas open standards ensure the flexibility to adapt, switch providers, and layer domestic priorities.
Governments should prioritize control over the interaction between AI stack layers rather than ownership of each layer.
To achieve AI sovereignty, governments should:
- Treat AI standards as a strategic concern, actively participating in relevant international and regional standards bodies.
- Leverage public procurement by requiring open interfaces and system portability.
- Focus regulatory attention on integration, oversight, and orchestration layers where sovereignty is most attainable.
- Create standardized, secure data-exchange environments to ensure data portability and accessibility.
- Form interoperability blocs with neighboring or like-minded economies to create large collective markets.
- Fund the development of open-source orchestration layers and middleware to ensure the connective tissue remains public.