Technological Sovereignity, Big Tech and the Military-Digital complex

Francesco Crespi, Dario Guarascio and Jelena Reljic

No 283, Working Papers in Public Economics from Department of Economics and Law, Sapienza University of Rome

Abstract: This article reassesses the concept of technological sovereignty and its policy implications in light of the close relationships between US- and China-based digital monopolies (i.e., Big Tech) and their respective military apparatuses. First, we empirically examine the growing influence of the private sector in R&D activities, the increasing centrality of digital technologies within sectoral and technological hierarchies, the emergence of Big Tech firms and their dominance over knowledge, infrastructures, and key technologies such as cloud computing and AI. Second, building on Coveri et al. (2025a), we analyse the mutual dependence between Big Tech and the military apparatus, showing how it reinforces the economic power of the private actors involved, weakens the state’s capacity to act autonomously, and intensifies the subordination of foreign governments dependent on US and Chinese digital platforms. Third, we propose a typology of technological sovereignty that takes into account the degree of technological dependence on Big Tech, the nature of the relationship between states and digital companies, and, consequently, the state’s capacity to align the activities of these companies with its own strategic objectives.

Keywords: technological sovereignty; Big Tech; R&D; military apparatus (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F5 F52 F55 O33 O34 O38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30
Date: 2026-06
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.dipecodir.it/wpsap/data/wp283.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sap:wpaper:wp283

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers in Public Economics from Department of Economics and Law, Sapienza University of Rome
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Luisa Giuriato ().