The challenge of India’s digital sovereignty
This article examines the risks to India's national security and economic stability posed by reliance on foreign-owned digital infrastructure. It highlights recent incidents where foreign software and geopolitical sanctions disrupted Indian operations, arguing for greater digital and algorithmic sovereignty.
Why it matters
It highlights the growing geopolitical tension between national security and the globalized nature of critical digital infrastructure.
In the modern world, digital infrastructure is the track on which commerce, government, and national security run. Seen in this context, recent reports of Indian closed-circuit television (CCTV) networks being compromised by hostile entities to gain access to information on India’s strategic defence assets (April 2026), along with an incident in July 2025, in which Nayara Energy was abruptly denied access to its corporate email, collaboration tools, and cloud-stored data, raise serious concerns about the future of India’s digital and technological sovereignty. While the CCTV security breach was attributed to the use of the Chinese software platform EseeCloud in the CCTV equipment, the Nayara episode was a result of Microsoft Corporation’s unilateral enforcement of European Union (EU) sanctions against Nayara Energy due to the stake held in it by the Russian energy giant Rosneft.
The article presents a geopolitical analysis of national security concerns without taking a partisan stance on domestic Indian politics.
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