E-Paper
India's next strategic asset isn't data, it's control over data
This article is authored by Venkatesh Thenkarai, chief digital officer, BahwanCyberTek.
For decades, countries competed for natural resources, manufacturing capacity and energy security. But today, a new strategic race is underway, one that is less visible but equally consequential. It is a race to control the digital infrastructure that powers modern economies.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has accelerated this shift. As governments and enterprises deploy AI at scale, computing infrastructure is becoming as critical as electricity, transportation and telecommunications. Data has become a strategic asset, but increasingly, the bigger question is not where data resides. It is who controls the infrastructure that stores it, processes it and keeps it running.
That question is now a boardroom issue, a policy issue and increasingly, a geopolitical one.
Across the world, governments are reassessing digital dependence. Europe is investing in sovereign cloud initiatives. Countries in West Asia are building nationally governed AI infrastructure. Nations across Asia are reviewing how much of their digital economy depends on technology platforms operating beyond their legal jurisdiction.
India is entering this conversation at a defining moment. With one of the world's fastest-growing digital economies and ambitious AI aspirations, the country has an opportunity to shape how digital infrastructure supports long-term economic resilience.
The conversation around digital sovereignty is no longer theoretical.
As the Southeast Asian nation of Brunei accelerated its digital first strategy, it faced a challenge that many governments are beginning to confront. It wanted to take advantage of hyperscale cloud innovation while ensuring that critical workloads remained under local operational control and governance.
Rather than choosing between public cloud and traditional on-premises infrastructure, Brunei adopted a different approach. We partnered with the country and took the initiative to set up a sovereign cloud infrastructure powered by AWS outposts. AWS Outposts lets businesses use Amazon's cloud technology from within their own offices or data centres instead of relying only on the public cloud. The architecture combined hyperscaler capabilities with locally governed operations, 24×7 managed services and operational control, enabling sensitive workloads to remain under data sovereignty requirements of the country
The project illustrates an important shift in thinking. Digital sovereignty is no longer about choosing between global cloud platforms and local infrastructure. Increasingly, governments are looking for architectures that deliver both, global innovation with local control.
India is likely to face similar choices as AI adoption accelerates across both the public and private sectors.
AI has changed the economics of digital infrastructure. As enterprises deploy AI at scale, demand for computing capacity is rising rapidly. At the same time, critical sectors, including banking, life sciences, manufacturing, logistics and public services—are becoming increasingly dependent on infrastructure that must remain secure, resilient and under trusted operational control.
Unlike traditional enterprise applications, AI systems process intellectual property, sensitive customer information and operational data that directly influence business decisions. The risks therefore extend beyond conventional cybersecurity. Organisations must also consider operational continuity, governance and dependence on infrastructure that may sit outside their control.
A sovereign data centre is often misunderstood as simply a facility located within national borders. In reality, sovereignty extends well beyond physical location. It includes legal jurisdiction, operational governance, identity management, encryption, privileged access and the ability to recover critical systems without unacceptable dependence on another country or provider.
A server located in India does not automatically create a sovereign environment if administrative control, encryption keys or security operations remain outside the organisation's governance.
India's digital infrastructure has expanded rapidly over the past five years. Data centre capacity has grown from around 375 MW in 2020 to approximately 1,500 MW in 2025, driven by cloud adoption, digital public infrastructure and increasing AI workloads.
The recently announced Viksit Gujarat Data Centre Policy 2026–29 reflects this broader shift. The policy seeks to accelerate investment in AI-ready infrastructure through faster approvals, power availability and fiscal incentives, recognising that computing capacity is becoming a strategic economic asset rather than simply another real estate investment.
At the same time, India's Digital Personal Data Protection framework places greater accountability on organisations handling personal information. Even where cross-border data transfers remain permissible, enterprises continue to be responsible for protecting data and governing the entities that process it.
Taken together, these developments signal an important shift. Digital infrastructure is becoming as strategically important as physical infrastructure.
One of the biggest misconceptions surrounding digital sovereignty is that it requires organisations to move away from global cloud providers. It does not.
India's digital economy will continue to benefit from hyperscale cloud platforms, international technology partnerships and global innovation. The objective is not to replace these ecosystems but to ensure that workloads critical to national resilience operate within governance models that provide appropriate operational control, security and continuity.
The most practical approach is therefore a hybrid one. Organisations can continue to leverage global cloud platforms for scale, innovation and AI capabilities while placing sensitive workloads in sovereign environments with stronger legal, operational and technical safeguards.
For India, sovereign digital infrastructure is not just another technology investment. It is an investment in economic resilience, national competitiveness and long-term digital trust.
The real measure of a sovereign data centre is not its postal address. It is whether governments and enterprises retain meaningful control over their most critical digital assets, who governs the data, who manages privileged access, who controls encryption keys and whether essential services can continue operating when external conditions change.
As AI becomes central to economic growth, those capabilities will increasingly define digital leadership. For India, building sovereign digital infrastructure is not about looking inward. It is about creating the trusted foundation on which an AI-powered economy can confidently grow.
(The views expressed are personal)
This article is authored by Venkatesh Thenkarai, chief digital officer, BahwanCyberTek.
