Here’s what’s on our plate today:

• 🇪🇺 Europe, Nvidia, and the rise of “sovereign AI”—why your next chatbot might be more nationalistic than you think.

• 💰 Can countries really build their own AI superpowers, or is it all just chip envy and billion-dollar buzzwords?

• 🛠️ Three cutting-edge tools—from AI docs to instant game art—to keep your workflow sovereign (or just more fun).

• 🧠 Who kicked off the global “sovereign AI” race? (Winner gets bragging rights, not data sovereignty.)

Let’s dive in. No floaties needed…

The Laboratory

What is ‘Sovereign AI,’ and is it the next big thing?

Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia and one of the principal movers in the AI race, has been touring Europe’s major capitals, including London, Paris, and Berlin. During his tour, announcements have come thick and fast. In Britain, Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged over $1.3 billion for computing power, in France, President Emmanuel Macron framed AI infrastructure as "our fight for sovereignty," and in Germany, Nvidia and Deutsche Telekom announced a new AI cloud platform.

While these announcements can be viewed as European countries trying to make the best of Huan’s visit and catch up to the US and China in the AI race, there is another view that has caught popular attention: the idea of sovereign AI.

The idea of sovereign AI rests on the premise that AI is not just about a faster or easier way of searching for information on the internet, but a fundamental shift in how knowledge is created, distributed, and applied. The idea could shift the way we view AI and lead to a reimagination of the corporate power dynamics in the world of technology.

So, what is sovereign AI, what role is Nvidia’s CEO playing in popularising the idea, and what could be the outcome of this idea? Let us take a closer look.

What is sovereign AI?

The simplest way is to think of sovereign AI as AI nationalism. We live in the world of nation states, and if nations treat AI as a strategic asset that can be used to ensure data privacy and security, they will want domestic control over the training, inference, and data security of AI models.

It’s essentially about AI autonomy, ensuring that a country is not dependent on external powers (especially geopolitical rivals) for the critical AI systems that will drive its economy, national security, and digital governance.

This mentality is reflected in the wariness shown among leaders of many European countries of their dependency on a handful of U.S. tech companies. This wariness has also been fueled by the current US President’s criticism of EU tech regulations, which he feels could inhibit their growth of US companies, going as far as threatening to levy tariffs in response.

Some of the key aims of sovereign AI are to ensure data sovereignty that will allow countries to control the data used to train AI models, including where the data is stored, who has access, and how it is regulated. Another aspect is ownership of high-performance computing infrastructure (such as GPUs and data centers) necessary for training and deploying models. Another aim is to ensure countries have control over the ability to fine-tune foundational AI models (e.g., LLMs, vision models) domestically, rather than depending on companies like OpenAI, Google, or Microsoft. Finally, to ensure they can develop indigenous AI algorithms and be able to enforce national values, norms, and laws in how AI is built and used (e.g., privacy rules, fairness metrics, censorship regimes).

It's not just the EU; many countries are also looking to have a greater say in the development and deployment of the latest AI models.

Jensen Huang's influence on sovereign AI?

Jensen Huang has been pitching the idea of sovereign AI since 2023. During the World Government Summit in Dubai in 2024, Huang said that every country needs to have its own artificial intelligence infrastructure to take advantage of the economic potential while protecting its own culture.

The CEO of Nvidia has been positioning the chipmaker as a key partner in helping countries build their own local AI ecosystem. This has been received positively by investors. Analysts estimate the sovereign AI market could be worth $1.5 trillion, with Europe alone contributing roughly $120 billion, driving Nvidia’s stock gains and reinforcing its market position.

Global powers driving sovereign AI initiatives

Apart from member states of the EU, countries like China, India, and even the U.S. are pursuing the goal.

China is seeking self-reliance and aiming for global dominance in the AI race. The country outlined its aim to pursue "self-reliance and self-strengthening" to develop AI in China. One of the key developments in the area came when Chinese AI startup DeepSeek drew global attention when it launched an AI reasoning model that it said was trained with less advanced chips and was cheaper to develop than its Western rivals. The country is also making steady inroads in infrastructure software engineering.

India, too, has been making heavy investments in artificial intelligence projects. The country announced a $1.25 billion investment in artificial intelligence projects, including to development of computing infrastructure and the development of large language models. The money is expected to be used for funding AI startups, as well as developing AI applications for the public sector.

And even though U.S. companies like OpenAI, Meta, and Google currently dominate the AI landscape, the country is continuing to spend on artificial intelligence to bolster its military. The country has reportedly increased spending on AI-related federal contracts by almost 1,200%, from $355 million in the period leading up to August 2022 to $4.6 billion in the period leading up to August 2023. The increase was reported to have been driven by the Department of Defense (DoD).

Key challenges to achieving sovereign AI?

While leaders focus on pursuing sovereignty in the AI space, there are real-world challenges that need to be addressed. One of the biggest challenges is funding the high upfront costs. Building a national-scale AI infrastructure (e.g., data centers with GPU clusters) requires tens of billions of dollars, which can be a big drain on resources. And even if countries can find the money to fund their ambition, there is the question of hardware dependency. Nations are still largely dependent on U.S. or Taiwan-based firms like NVIDIA and TSMC for high-end chips (e.g., H100 GPUs, 5nm semiconductors).

Another major hurdle is finding AI researchers, engineers, and system architects, most of whom are concentrated in the U.S., China, and a few elite institutions. Countries also run the hurdle of overcoming U.S. restrictions on exporting AI chips to certain countries (e.g., China, parts of the Middle East) can stall sovereign AI ambitions.

And finally, countries will also need to address concerns around the misuse of the technology. Sovereign AI gives states direct control over powerful AI systems, raising risks of surveillance, disinformation, or authoritarian control.

The future of sovereign AI strategies

Sovereign AI represents a significant turning point in how nations approach artificial intelligence, not just as a technological tool, but as a pillar of strategic autonomy. As countries race to control their own AI infrastructure, data, and models, they aim to reduce dependence on dominant foreign tech firms and assert their values in digital systems.

Jensen Huang’s advocacy and Nvidia’s positioning have accelerated global interest, making sovereign AI both a geopolitical priority and a commercial opportunity.

However, the road ahead is fraught with challenges: infrastructure costs, hardware dependencies, talent shortages, and ethical concerns. Despite these hurdles, the push toward sovereign AI underscores a broader shift, one where AI becomes not just a driver of innovation but a symbol of national power, economic security, and digital independence. In this emerging AI world order, nations that successfully build and control their own AI ecosystems may find themselves better equipped to lead the next wave of global innovation.

3 Things Worth Trying

• Gamma’s AI Docs Generator
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• Scenario AI
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• DiffusionBee 2.0
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