What is digital sovereignty and why is it important for businesses

With specific countries and tech giants gaining significant control over data hosting worldwide, more and more countries have had a hard time to control and regulate the data created, shared and consumed by their constituents. In fact, 92% of the data exchanged in the western world is stored in the United States according to data from an Oliver Wyman report.   This staggering statistic was years in the making as tech companies focused on making the general public accustomed to a wave of cutting edge tech products and services (social media, emailing, e-commerce) for a low or a non-existing price. Although nothing is wrong with such solutions, the vagueness of their terms and conditions and unclarity surrounding their handling of data, made it extremely hard for users (even the tech savvy ones) to understand where their data is stored and how it is used.   Additionally, the interference of some countries and their growing requests for user data from tech companies such as Google and Facebook -regardless of where that data is physically stored- further demonstrating their power and firm grip over the digital world. For instance, according to a Proton Mail report, user data requests from the U.S government alone have increased by a whopping 510% for Google and 364% for Facebook.   To effectively tackle these challenges, we have seen the implementation of many initiatives and regulations aimed at protecting personal data and increasing transparency and trust, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union and many other privacy laws linked to countless countries.   Furthermore, France and Germany among a host of other countries did fund sovereign cloud projects in the last decade to decrease their dependence on foreign cloud providers.   However, although these projects were and still fully backed by governments, the E.U in particular was no match to tech superpowers U.S and China whose spending on tech R&D was 2 to 5 times higher than the EU.   With this being said though, the battle to reach digital sovereignty is not only political, but economical as well. The digital economy contributes significantly to economic growth with 1.1% growth expected in the European Union and an additional 14% GDP growth by 2030.   With these figures in mind, one can simply assume that the questions we have mentioned above are more complex as both entire countries and private entities are involved in the handling of large volumes of data, in a more or less borderless digital landscape.   Recently, the German chancellor Angela Merkel along with three Prime ministers from Estonia, Finland and Denmark voiced their concern to the European Parliament. Through a joint letter, they have urged fellow European countries to join their efforts in an attempt to limit the influence of foreign countries and develop a strategy to reach digital sovereignty. The letter said: