F10: From Technology Convergence to Sovereign Systems

Bottom Line

The old belief that technology naturally moves toward shared standards was never a law of nature. It held because dominant players benefited and global supply chains hid how concentrated the system actually was. As boundary rules harden unevenly and states/markets shoulder duplication costs to different degrees, that era is over.

Nations now pursue technological sovereignty through officially incompatible systems. This is not short-term trade turbulence but long-term structural partition—a political division of technical systems that may remain interoperable in principle yet grow increasingly segregated in practice. Distinct ecosystems are forming: the US weaponises proprietary dominance, China deploys open-source as soft power, the EU builds consortiums and India offers protocol alternatives. Yet complete separation is neither achievable nor, quietly, desired. Grey markets, middlemen states, and open-source channels ensure the walls remain porous. The result is performative decoupling—hard borders, soft flows.

Layers are fragmenting at different speeds all at once: hardware, software, standards, research networks. Each layer can split independently—different blocs control different parts. Computing power, data and access become diplomatic currency. The result reshapes how technological power works. 

Go Deeper

Content relevant to this forecast will be posted here as it is developed.