Rethinking Power in the Digital Age
In this brief, the authors present a timely and original lens on how power operates in the 21st Century, with the real contest for global influence playing out in the “technological substrate.” This substrate operates across four interconnected domains, each representing a crucial dimension of technological power. First, the computation infrastructure comprising semiconductors, fabs, and data centres; second, the network architecture that enables communication and data flow; third, the information systems and algorithms that organise and process data; fourth, the regulatory controls and standards bodies that control technological development and deployment.
The brief highlights that control over each of these domains is concentrated in the hands of a few players, granting them asymmetric leverage while creating vulnerabilities for dependent states. Understanding the substrate also explains some of the contemporary trends in state behaviour. US export controls on advanced semiconductors to China, Beijing’s push for a new internet protocol, Russia’s creation of a sovereign internet, and the centrality of Nvidia AI chips and the TikTok algorithm in ongoing US-China trade talks, are all manifestations of power play in the substrate.
A key contribution of this brief for public policy makers is the articulation of the "technological sovereignty trap" that developing nations face. Forced to adopt foreign technologies, countries find themselves locked into dependencies that can compromise autonomy and constrain policy choices. Digital technologies often exhibit a winner-takes-all dynamic, and once entrenched, switching to alternatives becomes nearly impossible.
The authors also outline practical pathways for middle powers such as India that aspire for strategic autonomy in the digital age. They suggest that countries must develop comprehensive maps of their technological dependencies and identify critical technologies that must be developed indigenously. They must actively participate in the governance of technological standards and explore opportunities for cooperation with other nations to reduce dependence on major powers. There is also a need to raise technological literacy among the policy-making elite, and to craft legal frameworks that ensure leverage over global platforms operating within domestic borders.
Issues that have traditionally been treated as "technical" are today shaping geopolitical power. This brief emphasises the need for nations to consider shifting attention from the conventional metrics of sovereign power to the technological infrastructure and protocols that shape everyday life and economic security in the post-industrial, technology driven modern era.
To read this DPG Policy Brief Vol. X, Issue 26, please click "Rethinking Power in the Digital Age".
