- FNTV’s Sovereignty Spectrum assesses whether technology suppliers give customers meaningful control over their critical infrastructure, data and operational systems
- Sovereignty is about control, not just data location
- The real test is whether customers can operate independently
Technology lock-in is hardly new. IBM built powerful proprietary ecosystems half a century ago. Escaping could mean replacing hardware, rewriting applications and retraining workforces. But the principal penalty was economic.
Today’s most important tech platforms occupy an entirely different position. They hold data, identities and encryption keys. They enforce policy, interpret events, coordinate infrastructure and increasingly use AI to recommend or initiate decisions. They are becoming the operational nervous system through which an institution perceives, decides, acts — and ultimately succeeds or fails.
That makes sovereignty more than vendor lock-in.
If replacing a supplier costs $100 million, you have a commercial dependency. If a supplier, foreign government, sanction, license withdrawal or political decision can materially impair your ability to operate, you have a sovereignty problem. An organization can own its data and still lose meaningful control of the systems that interpret it and determine what happens next.
This is what I mean by Operational Sovereignty: meaningful control over increasingly autonomous systems. In a recent conversation, Versa Networks CEO Kelly Ahuja captured why data residency alone is not enough: “Maybe the data plane is ... localized, but the control and management or operations may not be.”
To help carriers, enterprises and industries understand their sovereignty dependency/independency, FNTV has developed the Sovereignty Spectrum (see figure). It measures customer authority, substitutability, portability, survivability and decision independence. Paradoxically, the better the product, the deeper the dependency: customers build more of themselves around it. That requires either exceptional trust in the provider — or a meticulously designed exit strategy.
When the supplier has a worldview
There is another factor in the sovereignty calculation: institutional alignment.
Most technology companies lobby governments. That does not necessarily make them politically aligned. Nokia states in its Code of Conduct that it is “independent of any political affiliations” and does not participate in the political or electoral process through donations to political groups, while still advocating its interests with governments.
Ericsson similarly embeds this principle in its Code of Business Ethics and Group Policy on Government and Policy Advocacy, stating that it does not contribute directly or indirectly to political parties or individual politicians, while permitting transparent policy advocacy.
In other words, political non-alignment is not merely a posture for these companies; it is embedded in their formal corporate governance.
These companies have commercial interests and policy positions, but they are primarily infrastructure suppliers, rather than ideological actors.
Palantir is different by its own description. Its 2025 annual report says it generally will not work with customers or governments whose positions conflict with its mission to support “Western liberal democracy [sic] and its strategic allies.” That is an explicit corporate worldview.
Palantir’s influence also extends beyond its own platform: it has formal partnerships with several companies elsewhere on the spectrum, including Oracle, Microsoft, Google, AWS, Snowflake, SAP and Cisco, allowing its decision and AI layer to become embedded across a much broader technology stack.
Oracle also warrants closer scrutiny than a conventional “neutral vendor” label. Its support for Israel goes beyond public statements. Oracle donated about $2 million in military equipment to elite IDF units operating in Gaza, including telescopic sights and protective equipment. Safra Catz also said the company had provided technology to Israel’s war effort that she described as “really profoundly scary.” Larry Ellison’s position is similarly explicit: in 2017 he donated $16.6 million to Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, then the largest single gift in the organization’s history. Taken together, Oracle’s political alignment is expressed through rhetoric, material support and technological support.
With companies like Palantir and Oracle, political neutrality cannot simply be assumed. When a vendor controls databases, identity, security, cloud infrastructure, workflow or AI decision systems, the customer has to ask what happens if the supplier’s strategic or political interests diverge from its own.
The Sovereignty Spectrum
The spectrum is not a product-quality ranking. Companies within each band are alphabetical and are not individually ranked.
Ties that bind
Level 1 — Sovereignty benchmark: Red Hat
Red Hat remains the benchmark because open-source foundations, portable skills and broad deployment choice provide unusually strong credible exit.
Level 2 — European control and high-assurance operations: OVHcloud · Thales
OVHcloud and Thales combine European control with regional or high-assurance operations, although customers still consume provider-operated or partner-dependent technology.
Level 3 — Operator-controlled infrastructure: Ericsson · Nokia
Ericsson and Nokia sit relatively high because operators can run their standards-based infrastructure locally for decades. Much of the underlying technology is built around open industry standards, but the vendors’ own software, management systems and integrated platforms remain proprietary. Switching is expensive, yet customers generally retain operational authority — and the trust between operator and supplier is often built over decades.
Level 4 — Local control over hyperscaler technology: T-Systems
T-Systems can add a locally accountable control layer over hyperscaler technology.
Level 5 — Customer-operated, open and multivendor: Arista · HPE · Juniper
Arista, HPE and Juniper preserve considerable customer operation and interoperability.
Level 6 — Strong control, deeper platform dependence: Broadcom/VMware · Cisco · Nutanix · Palo Alto Networks
Broadcom/VMware, Cisco, Nutanix and Palo Alto Networks provide strong customer control but can create deeper platform dependence as management, virtualization and security become control planes.
Level 7 — Local operation with geopolitical or institutional exposure: Huawei · Orange Business · SAP
Huawei can provide a highly complete locally operated stack, while creating political, legal or supply-chain exposure in some jurisdictions. Orange Business and SAP can support local control, although SAP shows how dependency becomes institutional when software is embedded in core business processes. Orange’s Philippe Ensarguet, VP cloud and software engineering and Orange Fellow, described the cumulative danger of adding specialist dependencies bluntly: “Every time we onboard a new partner ... basically we are digging the hole in which we will fall.”
Level 8 — Narrower proprietary control planes: Cloudflare · Lumen
Cloudflare and Lumen occupy narrower control planes than hyperscalers, limiting the potential blast radius of dependence while remaining proprietary platforms.
Level 9 — Open formats and cross-cloud deployment: Databricks
Databricks benefits from open formats and cross-cloud deployment, improving portability even though its higher-level services remain proprietary.
Level 10 — Proprietary global cloud platforms: AWS · Google · Microsoft*
AWS, Google and Microsoft have invested heavily in sovereign-cloud controls, but customers still depend on proprietary global platforms, whose development and many essential operational mechanisms remain outside customer control. Increasingly close ties to Palantir amplify concerns.
Level 11 — Cross-cloud reach with data gravity: Snowflake*
Snowflake improves cloud and location choice while retaining substantial data gravity and switching friction.
Level 12 — Deep institutional platform dependence: Oracle* · ServiceNow
Oracle offers strong dedicated and isolated deployment options, but its databases, applications and cloud services can span several institutional layers. ServiceNow can become embedded in the workflows through which institutions operate, making exit a reconstruction of processes rather than a simple software migration.
Level 13 — Institutional decision dependence: Palantir
Palantir is on the lowest rung because its technology sits at the point where data becomes perception, decision and action. That is why continuity is the ultimate sovereignty test. As European Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen put it: “We have to be able always to continue our operations in all circumstances.”
* indicates a verified formal relationship or partnership with Palantir
A practical way to test any supplier is to turn the sovereignty argument into six operational questions:
Learn more about operational sovereignty
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Stephen M. Saunders MBE is a communications analyst and USPTO-registered inventor examining how digital infrastructure — 5G, cloud and AI — is reshaping industry, power and society, as well as underpinning the emerging, ubiquitous global digital economy. As anchor of FNTV and a longtime industry insider, he focuses less on growth narratives and more on execution, risk and how hyperscale technology is distorting markets, governance and society at scale.
Opinion pieces from industry experts, analysts or our editorial staff do not represent the opinions of Fierce Network.