Compute Sovereignty

Abstract

Compute sovereignty — guaranteed, uninterruptible access to the processors that run a nation’s digital and AI infrastructure — has become the most capital-intensive and geopolitically exposed layer of the sovereignty stack introduced in SDIS-01. This paper examines the structural dependency created by extreme concentration in advanced semiconductor fabrication and AI accelerator supply, and traces the history of compute’s transformation from a commodity input into an explicitly strategic asset. It surveys the national compute strategies emerging in response — domestic GPU cluster procurement, sovereign cloud compute allocation, and diversified accelerator sourcing — provides a three-dimensional framework for estimating compute exposure, and examines fourteen detailed case studies spanning diversification programs, single-vendor dependency incidents, firmware licensing outages, and comparative national strategies across the Gulf states, India, and the EU. It closes by connecting compute sovereignty to the controls in SDIS-02 and the resilience methodology in SDIS-07, with an implementation roadmap, glossary, and self-assessment checklist.