On September 22, the Digi Americas Alliance and Paladin Global Institute convened senior government, technology, cybersecurity, policy, and private-sector leaders in New York City on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly for a discussion on the future of digital sovereignty.

The event marked the launch of two new reports: Digi Americas’ Digital Sovereignty in Latin America: Building Secure, Open, and Resilient Digital Ecosystems and Paladin Global Institute’s Navigating Digital Sovereignty in Europe. Drawing on experiences from Latin America and Europe, the discussion explored how governments can strengthen control over their digital futures while preserving cybersecurity, resilience, innovation, competition, and the benefits of globally connected technology ecosystems.

Digi Americas’ research argues that digital sovereignty should not be equated with technological self-sufficiency, strict data localization, or isolation from global technology markets. Instead, it advances a capability-based approach focused on governments’ ability to securely govern their data, infrastructure, and critical digital services. Security, resilience, interoperability, transparency, portability, and choice can provide meaningful control while allowing countries to continue benefiting from international investment, trusted technology providers, and global innovation.

Paladin Global Institute presented a complementary perspective from Europe, examining technological dependencies across cloud infrastructure, software, artificial intelligence, and hardware. Its research similarly emphasizes that the location or ownership of technology alone does not determine whether infrastructure is secure or resilient. Instead, governments should consider practical characteristics such as key custody, confidential computing, supply-chain transparency, independent assurance, incident disclosure, and portability.

The research presentations set the stage for an executive panel, “Digital Sovereignty in Practice: Building Secure, Trusted, and Competitive Digital Ecosystems.” Panelists discussed how sovereignty considerations are shaping decisions around cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, AI, data governance, technology procurement, investment, and strategic dependencies.

A central theme emerged across the conversation: greater digital sovereignty does not have to mean greater digital isolation. Governments can strengthen resilience and reduce strategic dependencies through trusted partnerships, diversified technology options, interoperability, strong cybersecurity practices, and investments in domestic capabilities without unnecessarily cutting themselves off from global technology ecosystems.

For Latin America, this presents an important opportunity. Rather than simply importing approaches developed elsewhere, countries across the region can build models suited to their own economic, security, and institutional circumstances. As governments make consequential decisions about cloud infrastructure, AI, cybersecurity, data governance, and digital transformation, they have an opportunity to strengthen national and regional capabilities while maintaining access to global innovation, expertise, investment, and security capabilities.

The New York discussion demonstrated the value of bringing regional perspectives together as governments worldwide reconsider what sovereignty means in an increasingly interconnected digital environment. Through Digi Americas, the Center for Cybersecurity Policy and Law will continue working with governments, industry, and partners across the region to advance practical approaches that strengthen cybersecurity, resilience, and trusted technology ecosystems throughout the Americas.

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