Most countries won’t achieve tech sovereignty by 2030

Progress toward global tech sovereignty will move at a glacial pace between now and 2030, according to a new report.

Forrester’s Global Sovereignty Forecast found that the average global tech sovereignty score will inch up to 40% in 2030, up from 39% in 2025. Tech sovereignty describes a country’s ability to control and operate its own digital assets; sovereignty goals may influence which vendors an IT pro chooses for their organization or how they manage consumer data.

Methodology. The score was calculated using Forrester’s overall tech sovereignty index, which measured 14 different countries’ “ability to develop, operate, and secure critical technologies independently to reduce exposure to geopolitical risks.” Examined countries included the US, China, and France. The index accounted for nine different areas including government AI spending, cloud sovereignty, and chip production.

Slow progress. Forrester Principal Analyst Dario Maisto told IT Brew “structural issues” are the culprit behind the slow growth in average global tech sovereignty scores between 2025 and 2030, as resources that would help bolster overall sovereignty (e.g., land availability for data center construction, energy grids, talent pipelines, etc.) take time to develop.

“This is not stuff that you build overnight,” Maisto said. “There are structural problems that you cannot solve in one or two years.”

Lead the way. The US and China led the pack when it came to the 14 companies examined, with an overall tech sovereignty score of 79% and 82%, respectively. Forrester said China ruled several areas like government AI spending and government manageable debt, while the US dominated in software creation and semiconductor manufacturing.

Meanwhile, European countries are likely to continue their dependency on foreign tech providers. Germany and France, for example, had respective tech sovereignty scores of 34% and 33% in 2025.

Absolute sovereignty? In its report, Forrester said absolute sovereignty is currently unrealistic, even for the US and China. Forrester said midsize nations should instead “pool sovereignty with like-minded entities via blocs and partnerships.” Maisto, for example, said a strategic partnership with an existing hyperscaler could quickly become an “infrastructure that is independent from the foreign legal jurisdiction” and one that can help to meet sovereignty goals.

“If we expect sovereignty to come…out of doubling the power grids and doubling the data centers in the continent, that’s never going to happen in the short run,” Maisto said. “But if we do this by the means of partnerships and strategic alliances, there are a few tweaks that we can do to existing infrastructure, to existing legal agreements, to existing ways of working that will enable the minimum viable sovereignty that nations need.”

At the company level, IT pros can evaluate if they are meeting compliance requirements and the level of sovereignty they wish to achieve, along with the possible trade-offs that may come with it, Maisto said. For instance, choosing an on-prem solution produced locally as opposed to an SaaS version that originated from another country can mean opting for a “less innovative version” of the same product, he said.

“The question that I tell my clients they should ask themselves is, ‘How much sovereignty is actually not only viable and feasible, but also desirable?’”