Big Tech’s data centres — a threat to national sovereignty?

In the past 10 years, a singular focus on data with regard to its use and misuse, longevity and privacy, has resulted in the passing of legislation such General Data Protection Rules (GDPR) in the European Union and ‘Do not sell my data’ in California. More recently, legislation on curbing the possible excesses of generative AI has also been enacted in the EU. However, these efforts only address problems involving the monetising and misuse of data.

A much larger issue yet to be dealt with in a comprehensive manner involves the transfer of data, the transfer of ownership of the data, ownership of the site where data resides, and the transfer of ownership of the site where the data resides. This larger issue has global implications pertaining to nation-state sovereignty since free trade agreements being crafted permit a no-holds-barred approach to facilitating e-commerce.

Wars in the past have been conducted using human soldiers positioned in ‘forward operating bases’ with back-up supported provided by ‘main operating bases’ (for example, aircraft carriers) some distance away. It is a truism that all future wars will be fought in cyberspace using drones, robot soldiers and the like, which can be controlled remotely. Such wars will be heavily reliant on global data that is stored at national, regional and local data centres, immediately available via satellite for conducting electronic warfare.

Whether you label them data centres or cloud computing centres, it doesn’t really matter. Their purpose is to store all data generated by computing devices, irrespective of whether they are smartphones, laptops, desktops or tablets, so that the data can be accessed on an ‘as needed’ basis at any time and from anywhere.

Also immaterial is whether the data is work-related or generated through purely personal activities such as social media interactions, online shopping, web browsing, or email exchanges with friends and family. In short, global electronic surveillance and data-grab, mostly free, by Big Tech -- principally Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Apple and Oracle. In most cases, the land on which these data centres are sited as well as the data stored at these centres are considered US assets, worth defending at all costs.

Data centres owned and operated by Big Tech are usually located in large urban areas where real estate prices can command premium prices. In India, for example, there are data centres in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune and Bengaluru, which are owned and operated by Big Tech. In sharp contrast, except for Apple, China has no Big Tech data centres since the country’s data centres are operated by large home-grown IT companies such as Alibaba, Byte Dance and Baidu.

Since data is essentially virtual, it can be bought, sold, transferred, reused, repurposed or erased with the greatest of ease. Not so with data centres, since they require an elaborate physical infrastructure such as buildings to house numerous computers, mass-storage devices and cooling facilities, physical security staff, etc.

When one IT company buys another IT company in its entirety, the former gains possession of all assets, virtual and physical, of the latter. Sometimes, physical assets such as the real estate on which a company is situated may be worth more than its virtual assets, making it a target for acquisition.

Colonial history offers a few pointers on how a country’s overseas possessions such as trading posts, territories and bases were handled in the past. In the 19th century, frequent wars between European nations resulted in the losers ceding their colonial territories to the victors. During World War II, even though the US was neutral during the first half of the war, in what is known as the Destroyers for Bases Agreement, Britain ceded all of its bases in South America and the Caribbean to the US in exchange for 50 US warships.

In any cyberwar of the future, data centres will most certainly be involved, both as targets and as providers of data for identifying, locating and destroying enemy assets. Also, it is certain that net neutrality rules will be violated, impacting even those countries in the world who are not party to the war.

In the 20th century, oil changed the geopolitical boundaries of the world. In the 21st century, data will do the same.

Is it old wine in new bottles or new wine in old bottles? You decide.