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In the wake of the AI Summit held in New Delhi this a question that is often being repeated is: exactly what is digital sovereignty and how it has become a strategic priority?
And what does a truly sovereign software stack look like?
According to Kalyan Kumar, Chief Product Officer (CPO) at HCLSoftware, a leading Indian tech giant, digital sovereignty is no longer about isolation but about choice, control, and trust, positioning India to lead in globally scalable, sovereign-by-design technology solutions.
In the digital world actually, there is nothing called true sovereignty. In a hyperconnected world, especially in the digital world, digital world spans a borderless world where technology, platforms, networks are work across physical boundaries therefore the traditional way you look at nation states boundaries are being fundamentally tested by some of these digital technologies, he added.
So one must start relooking at what sovereignty means in the digital context. It can mean many things. From the laws of the land, boundaries, access to territorial waters, so many things going on in a traditional sovereign design. But in the digital world, you have to reimagine couple of things. Sovereignty in the HCL Executive’s opinion, is all about choice.
The BharatShakti Group – comprising BharatShakti.in, StratNewsGlobal, and StratNewsGlobal.tech was in conversation with the CPO to understand HCLSoftware’s plans to position itself as a key technology partner in mission-critical sectors dealing with national security.
According to Kumar, HCLSoftware’s goal of building brand trust and thought leadership within the defence and strategic affairs community, is now a key driver for its future growth and given that India would be facing multiple challenges in coming years, tech sovereignty is bound to become non-negotiable.
Tech sovereignty is to be looked at through the prism of IP sovereignty, data sovereignty, the people operating and using the systems, and how much a country builds skills. That’s the trick in today’s world.
