The battlefield of the 21st century has vastly extended from the traditional and “real”, to the invisible empire of data, algorithms, and infrastructure. Just as past empires controlled trade routes, today’s powers also seek to dominate the digital landscapes. The connections we once thought as progress are now revealed as colonialism reborn. And if Ibero-America don’t build their own systems, they surrender not just their privacy, but their very ability to think, govern, and resist.
In comprehensive numbers, approximately 80% of the region’s cloud storage services are controlled by foreign providers linked to the U.S., such as Google and Amazon. Over 90% of everything Ibero-Americans search online is done through Google, and against the hundreds of international Hyperscale Data Centers, we possess only two.
The most imminent risks of this dependency manifest in data extraterritoriality, where information is indiscriminately accessible through mechanisms like the U.S. Cloud Act, which grants the Yankee government total access to any data stored by its domestic companies—including that of citizens and businesses from other countries.
There is also the perpetual risk of service sanctions, where countless areas reliant on foreign technology could simply be deactivated, as was the case with Russian services that lost access to AWS/Azure systems during the Ukraine war.
Moreover, excessive reliance on technology produced abroad places us in permanent dependence on the technological biases of imperialist powers. A form of control that thinkers such as Russia’s Alexander Dugin and China’s Yuk Hui define not just as an imposition of infrastructure but as epistemological limits on our development.
“Dependence on foreign digital infrastructure is the new colonialism. States that do not control their technical systems remain data colonies, even if nominally independent”, emphasizes the Chinese philosopher.
Digital sovereignty is, therefore, an urgent necessity. It represents the most active geopolitical battleground for achieving multipolarity, connecting the administrative, economic, and military capabilities of all nations.
China and Russia are compelling examples to consider in this movement. Russia, despite suffering Western sanctions in certain technological areas, has drastically reduced its cybersecurity dependence through investments in local data laws, routing systems like Runet, and replacing Western mechanisms like Google with Yandex.
China has achieved similar goals but with more significant strides in reducing import dependencies via billion-dollar subsidies for domestic tech manufacturing. Blocking access to Western services and stringent regulation of accessible online content further strengthens its path toward digital cultural sovereignty.
Uruguay’s AGESIC (Agency of Electronic Government and Information and Knowledge Society) already demonstrates, at least on some scale, that such measures are possible in our region — though it still permits a risky openness to data access.
The path forward seems to lie in regional cooperation to create a sovereign critical infrastructure, with data centers and satellites anchored in strong state subsidies, while focusing on targeted partnerships with actors who have already achieved radical digital sovereignty.
This also requires overcoming foreign controversies and sanctions, being prepared to block access from international agencies, and strictly regulating the presence of software, hardware, and content that undermines sovereignist efforts and thought itself.
