Curated from Latest from TechRadar US in News,opinion — Here’s what matters right now:
From the war in Ukraine, to the Middle East, and escalating tensions in the South China Sea, the threat of conflict is forcing governments and businesses to confront an uncomfortable truth that digital systems are not immune to geopolitical pressure. At London Tech Week recently UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that the way that war is being fought “has changed profoundly,” adding that technology and AI are now “hard wired” into national defense. It was a stark reminder that IT infrastructure management must now be viewed through a security lens and that businesses need to re-evaluate data management technologies and practices to ensure they are not left out in the cold. Easier said than done. According to recent research from Civo, 83% of UK IT leaders say geopolitics threatens their ability to control data and 61% view sovereignty as a strategic priority, yet only 35% know exactly where their data resides. That’s not just a compliance gap. It’s a sign that infrastructure, policy and strategy are still out of sync. Data sovereignty used to be a conversation for the policy teams and legal departments. Not anymore. Regulatory fragmentation, rising cyber risk, and increasingly complex data ecosystems are forcing organizations to treat sovereignty as a live operational concern. Whether it’s knowing who can access your AI training data or ensuring a healthcare provider meets national residency requirements, data sovereignty now defines what businesses can and cannot do. The EU Data Act, the UK's evolving position (the UK is no longer bound by the EU Data Act but it remains closely aligned in practice to preserve data adequacy and ensure the continued free flow of data with the EU), and the increasing stringency of critical infrastructure policies, are starting to shape what enterprise resilience should look like. As Lord Ricketts noted in the House of Lords in October last year, “the safe and effective exchange of data underpins our trade and economic links with the EU and co-operation between our law-enforcement bodies.” That trust depends on demonstrating a clear and enforceable approach to data control. For many, public cloud services have created a false sense of flexibility. Moving fast is not the same as moving safely. Data localization, jurisdictional control, and security policy alignment are now critical to long-term strategy, not barriers to short-term scale. So where does that leave enterprise IT? Essentially, it leaves us with a choice - design for agility with control, or face disruption when the rules change. Modern infrastructure needs to be sovereignty-aware Sovereignty-aware infrastructure isn’t about isolation. It’s about knowing where your data is, who can access it, how it moves, and what policies govern it at each stage. That means visibility, auditability, and the ability to adjust without rebuilding every time a new compliance rule appears. A hybrid multicloud approach gives organizations the flexibility while keeping data g
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Original reporting: Latest from TechRadar US in News,opinion