Only found out about “UN Open-Source Week” today <https://www.zdnet.com/article/digital-sovereignty-un-global-push-to-replace-us-cloud-giants-with-open-source-tech/>. So it’s not just Europe pushing for “Digital Sovereignty” -- lots of other parts of the world see the risks of being too dependent on one particular country for vital IT infrastructure. Tanzania’s Minister for Legal and Constitutional Affairs ... framed Tanzania's shift to open source as a move "from passive consumers of technology to… active creators of technology," and argued that "this is what digital sovereignty means in practice – not isolation, but ownership; not dependence, but partnership on our terms." [She] backed the rhetoric with numbers: more than 90% of Tanzania's government systems now run on open-source technologies, under a legal framework that includes the 2020 e‑Government Authority Act, a Personal Data Protection Act (2023), cybercrime law, and sectoral regulations, all built around shared national infrastructure and open interfaces. The country has also reallocated money from proprietary licenses to people. According to Kairuki, Tanzania has trained around 500 public officials as "a collaborative community of digital developers – citizens building for citizens" who run and evolve the systems they create. The CTO of Cloudera ... spelled out what AI sovereignty and "private AI" should mean for institutions: being able to answer seven practical questions, from "Where does your data really reside?" and "Who can access it, and under what conditions?" to "Can we replace the models instantly and the systems continue working?" and "Can we continue operating if a provider changes its commercial or political position?" Clearly, the answer, as Trump's administration's recent stoppage of Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 in their deployment tracks, showed is "No." If your AI workflow can be shut down by a government's whim, you really can't rely on it. Ireland’s Government CIO ... argued that sovereignty is "about choice and resilience," not "owning every technology," ... Also: On the policy side, European voices such as OpenForum Europe's Dr. Sachiko Muto stressed that digital sovereignty "is not being defined as a zero-sum game," but about "bringing user control into the discussion" and reducing single‑country or single‑vendor dependence for critical infrastructure. Germany’s Sovereign Tech Agency Director ... said governments can't rely on open-source volunteers as "involuntary suppliers" of critical components and must treat foundational open source like roads and bridges – infrastructure that the public sector has a duty to maintain, not just consume. And more: Throughout the week, speakers stressed that "digital sovereignty" should not be equated with national isolation. [Tanzania’s] Kairuki captured the consensus in a line many speakers later echoed: this is "about ownership in partnership, but not independence," ... Of course the Americans are not keen on all this. They seem to take their own continuing leadership for granted, even as the warning signs grow all around.