Why digital sovereignty belongs on the main stage in 2026

Digital sovereignty used to be a reliable way to end up with empty chairs at panel discussions - too political, too niche, too detached from reality. Those who brought it up were met, at best, with polite nods.

That picture has shifted. At the latest entrepreneurs’ breakfast, organized by Doro Brommer, the title was: “How Data Sovereignty Makes Companies Resilient and Competitive.” Seats were booked up immediately. On site, Joachim Astel from Noris Network spoke about how they build sovereign infrastructure for themselves and their clients, and Jens Horstmann from Trevisto shared insights from the practical world of data. A total of three strong voices from the region were met with great interest and many open questions. This was no niche event.


What has changed are the platform dependencies that were considered an acceptable risk three years ago. Today, they are discussed in board meetings. Funding programs, for example, are investing specifically in open digital infrastructure. Government agencies, in particular, are realizing that control over their own digital infrastructure is a prerequisite for their ability to act. According to the latest Deloitte study, “State of AI 2026” (surveying 3,235 executives across 24 countries), 77% of companies indicate that they consider the country of origin of an AI solution when making a selection. Sovereignty has shifted from a matter of network policy to a procurement issue.

Behind the buzzword “digital sovereignty” lies an uncomfortable question: How can organizations, regions, and societies remain capable of acting in a digital world whose core infrastructure they do not own?

Digital sovereignty does not mean building everything ourselves. Radical self-sufficiency is neither realistic nor desirable. It is about making conscious decisions. Where are dependencies acceptable? Where do they become a risk? Where do we need open standards to ensure that change remains possible at all?

The scenarios for this are concrete. A municipality whose specialized software depends on a single provider and can no longer manage its own data structures loses its room to maneuver. A small-to-medium-sized business that has no alternative when its cloud provider suddenly raises prices is left with no operational options.

The critical threshold lies where economic dependence turns into a loss of operational control. Consciously drawing this line is the essence of digital sovereignty.

For over a decade, the Nürnberg Digital Festival has been bringing together business, government, startups, research, and the tech community. At the Open Source Day 2025—organized by the Chamber of Industry and Commerce under the motto “Digital sovereignty begins with openness”—the festival demonstrated that the topic has taken root in the region. In 2026, we will explore it in greater depth as a key focus.

Digital sovereignty is relevant to many stakeholders. It affects the CTO who decides on infrastructure architectures just as much as the procurement officer in city government who chooses between proprietary and open-source software. The founder building on an open-source ecosystem and the researcher working on language models not controlled by any single company also face this issue.

They all have questions. To ensure these are discussed not behind closed doors but in open discourse, the Nürnberg Digital Festival is deliberately dedicating space to the topic.