Collaboration must win over sovereign tech stacks
‘Big Techs, little techs, all techs are reliant on open source software created by global collaboration’
The current conversation about geopolitics and tech is in danger of usurping the AI focus in 2025.
Whilst many new to this game of tech policy are focusing on an over-dependence on “US tech” and questioning how our reliance on Big Tech and the US is removed from our infrastructure and businesses, this is fundamentally the wrong question to ask.
Irrespective of trade and physical wars, the right question is, “How is a global digital tech future enabled and safeguarded?” At first glance it may seem laughable, but the answer is open source and collaboration.
We must stop being insular, and instead double-down on global collaboration - not close our digital borders. Looking inwards, shouting sovereignty and hedging our bets by focusing on rebuilding a tech stack without US dependencies will not serve us well. This kind of action is the start of a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is guaranteed to create bad feeling, and it is unsurprising if the reaction from its target is aggressive.
In recent weeks a light has shone on the USA, but in the past China too has been the focus of supply chain concerns. These concerns are not fixed by somewhat offensive public statements and acts of localisation, but by putting our own house in order to enable an environment in which innovation thrives and innovators scale their businesses locally.
Innovators will not thrive, nor will they stay to scale businesses, in countries with an environment where innovation is stifled by overly prescriptive legislation, nor in one that is risk averse or does not offer a good investment environment. For innovation to thrive, the environment must be right.
As for the US, its reaction to calls for a sovereign tech stack and threats to exclude US companies has been clear. In his recent speech, JD Vance demonstrated no political subtlety in the messaging. There is indeed “a new sheriff in town.” The US is willing to collaborate with its partners but not with nations it views as hostile, saying “nothing good ever came of that”. It will also not work with, and will come down hard on, those countries that threaten to adversely impact the business of US companies.
Vance has also been clear that the US is number one in AI and plans to stay that way. So how might this situation be managed? The answer is simple: collaboration.
A world that works together
Collaboration is essential to all nations that wish to benefit from the best of our digital economy. Today all businesses require this and depend on their governments to ensure its delivery.
Open source software underlies our digital infrastructure, forming its backbone. It is created by globally collaborating communities. So too, major innovation in gen-AI through LLMs increasingly focuses on open weights, open instructions and associated code being shared as open source software.
Whether considering France’s Hugging Face building the open source “R1open” using open elements of China’s DeepSeek’s R1, or the creation of R1 from the distillation of Meta’s LLaMA, the globally dependent open innovation pattern is clear.
Turning to software - like the ubiquitous Kubernetes sitting under the bulk of the world’s cloud environments and platforms, it too has a global contribution base. The UK is home to a swathe of leaders in Kubernetes like Kat Cosgrove, its last release manager; Tim Banister, its biggest contributor of code currently; and Alexis Richardson, the first chair of the Cloud Native Foundation’s Technical Oversight Committee.
In a fleeting conversation with a start-up founder about a “sovereign stack” this week, his response was “I don’t even understand what that is.” And he is spot on. It doesn’t exist.
It doesn’t exist because there is no such thing today as “US technology.” Even the most proprietary code incorporates open source, with the latest surveys showing 96% of all software has open source software dependencies.
No matter which country those open source projects were founded in or hosts their physical HQ (if they have one), those projects and its code are not realistically allocated to that country. They are global projects, built on technology created by others from many countries and the innovation around the code iterates on that.
Big Techs, little techs, and in fact, all techs are reliant on open source software created by global collaboration for their codebases. Every tech stack, everywhere in the world is reliant on this.
"Open will always win”
Open source was frequently mentioned in Mark Ridley’s attempt to build a non-US stack. What was actually outlined was a stack where the USA’s contributions were not apparent, but where they would equally underlie that so called non-US tech stack. AI is also rapidly shifting to follow the same path of openness.
Open will always win, as can be seen from our recent tech history. It is the only way innovation to meet difficult challenges truly occurs.
The chasm between the US and EU is visibly impossibly wide in their approach to innovation. The US is simply not going to see AI strangled by regulation before it takes off. It will not tolerate sovereign aggression towards US companies. The EU’s innovators are quick to tell you that they cannot thrive in its over-regulation, either.
Credit where credit is due, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has taken a much more sensible approach and appears to be doing a good job for the UK - at least as good a job as could be expected in the current environment. He has succeeded in President Trump publicly recognising the UK's unique relationship with the USA and the prospect of "a new economic deal with advanced technology at its core," noting that the UK and US are "the only two Western countries with trillion-dollar tech sectors – leaders in AI.”
This will be a blow to France’s President Macron coming shortly after his own US visit. But, as with other areas of leadership in the EU, France is visible in standing a step ahead of the rest of the EU and walking alongside the UK in its relationship with the US.
Macron has put in place open-source-friendly policies, which have enabled France to become the fastest growing contributor to open source software in Europe. He put AI openness at the heart of the Action Summit a few weeks ago; undoubtedly a significant aspect of his being in a position to announce $109b of investment into France’s AI environment.
The UK and US, however, aligned in declining to sign the Paris Action Summit Declaration. Thereafter the UK immediately shifted its “AI Safety Institute” to the “AI Security Insititute”, in-line with its trans-Atlantic ally.
A US-UK trade deal will, according to Trump, be seen "pretty quickly" and will likely not include tariffs.
His recent visit to the White House may result in Starmer - with a little help from King Charles's invitation to an unprecedented second State visit - finally starting to deliver meaningful impact for the UK's tech, innovation and AI sector.
This is absolutely critical not only to the success of the UK's future economy but also to leveraging its "unique post-Brexit" position sitting between the EU, US and rest of world. Every tech or policy conversation in the UK mentions this potential opportunity and moment in time for the UK. This White House trip may finally see Starmer begin to deliver to this potential, but he must also learn from Macron and ensure our policies on the ground are open source friendly. This will be critical for his policies to work in 2025 and for the UK to play its potential role in supporting global collaboration.
What must be done?
Global regulatory approaches to AI and open source software must be aligned to recognise their globally collaborative creation and utilisation. This global approach to regulation must be light touch and principles-based. Normalising this requires agility, and for this to adapt and grow with innovation. There will be less certainty, and the pace will be faster.
Standards will, as many point out, be useful. However, there must be recognition that the world of standards also needs to adapt, and that they may not be entirely helpful in their traditional guise. The Standards Creation Bodies are for-profit and traditional, relying on business models that need to evolve and must do so quickly.
To be impactful standards will need to be open and unencumbered by Standard Essential Patents. If not, they will break the free flow of open source and open innovation, and ultimately will not work. Standards bodies must adapt their model to enable broader participation from communities, as well as those who bring money to the table. To be relevant, their pace of creation must increase considerably.
Perhaps more important is building an understanding of the role of software tooling in a “tools not rules” approach to governance and regulation. Our developers and innovators understand GitOps and governance enabled by code - not legal code, but the software kind.
Our standards and our rules must, wherever possible, be translated into code and tooling that can be run within our technology to enable requirements to be met without requiring vast amounts of legal, governance and compliance time. Technological solutions to technology challenges are thus enabled to facilitate greater innovation and competition, removing the potential of regulatory capture.
Most of all, there must be recognition of the need for global collaboration in software, AI and across our digital landscape. All who are in policy, wherever in the world they are and whatever their roles are, must push back on proposed restrictions; whether they are a consequence of trade wars, physical wars or otherwise, and including sanctions. Push back on calls for sovereignty and potential laws that might close down or restrict the ability of developers and innovators to collaborate globally will be critical.
The future of technology and its governance must be global, and to be this it must be open and collaborative. It must span our geo-political borders.
Do you agree with Amanda? Or do you think a sovereign tech stack is the sensible way forward in the world of realpolitik? Let us know by emailing the editor on [email protected]