CASE STUDY are introduced? What happens if they can no longer access a particular technology?
We have seen this recently around AI. For example, one of the frontier models was initially made available in Europe, then removed from accessibility and subsequently put back into the market. When you have something like AI technology that is critical to the future operation of your business, having that level of dependency represents a huge risk.
Digital sovereignty has become such an important topic at public sector and government level.
Why has this become a board-level issue? Because it is a risk to the business and that is ultimately what the board is responsible for.
With strict EU regulations enforcing transparency, digital sovereignty is no longer just a business resilience and continuity issue. What is the actual cost of inaction for an EMEA enterprise that fails to secure its AI infrastructure today?
Potentially, the more we use AI, the more dependent we become on it. AI is different from previous technologies because, particularly when we are talking about Generative AI, a lot of what we are doing involves modelling your intellectual property and the way you operate as a business into that AI. That means it is not necessarily easy to replace the back end. also because the whole supply chain has been optimised for cost rather than resilience.
I think the geopolitical situation has exposed some of the weaknesses in those supply chains. At the same time, we have seen some noticeable technology failures, particularly in Europe. Some have been caused by mistakes, some have been related to geopolitical issues and others have simply been the result of technical barriers to scaling as we use more and more technology.
We have also seen examples involving hyperscalers. We were effectively being told that you could achieve resilience within the European continent, yet we have seen technology failures originating in the US affect an entire day of trading in Europe.
That is why digital sovereignty has become such an important topic at public sector and government level. When we talk to enterprises, however, what they are really focusing on is resilience. What happens if the geopolitical situation changes? What happens if restrictions
I mentioned earlier the example of a frontier model going from being completely accessible in a market to suddenly being removed. If the running of your company relies on that technology, it exposes you to a massive risk. It could mean that specific business processes you have built using that AI are no longer viable and you have to rebuild everything from scratch.
The other consideration is regulation in Europe. We have the Cyber Resilience Act coming into effect, including requirements around areas such as vulnerability reporting. We also have everything happening around the AI Act and the requirement for transparency.
AI is going to become increasingly embedded in how businesses make decisions, whether that is around trading, optimisation, the supply chain or interacting with customers. That is where transparency becomes particularly important.
There are also potentially significant fines associated with the AI Act. The regulatory environment around AI is still evolving, so it is something we all need to pay very close attention to. www. intelligentcio. com
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