The Dark Age of Data Imperialism: The Struggle for Digital Sovereignty
Vivek Parat
THE global economy today is driven not just by commodities or capital but by data. While often termed the “oil of the 21st century”, this analogy is flawed. Oil is finite and consumed upon use. Data, by contrast, is a fertile soil that grows and generates new value with every application. This “data soil”, with its questions of ownership and productivity, has become a key instrument for geopolitical dominance.
The uncontrolled growth of Big Tech monopolies — including legacy players like Google, Amazon, and Meta, and new-generation artificial intelligence behemoths like OpenAI (ChatGPT) and X.AI (Grok) — is laying the foundation for a new form of exploitation: data imperialism. This poses an existential threat to the digital sovereignty of developing nations.
NEW RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION AND THE AI TRAP
In a Marxist analysis, capital expands through the exploitation of labour. In the digital age, this exploitation has become more sophisticated, focusing on the theft of social production. The attention and engagement that users provide freely constitute unpaid labour, forming the crucial training ground for massive AI models.
Aggressively targeting markets like India, these AI companies initially offer their products and services entirely free of cost. This “freemium” strategy is designed to create complete user addiction, particularly among the youth, after which higher costs are introduced, turning a public resource into private profit. This mechanism is not just data exploitation; it is a meticulously planned strategy for future economic racketeering, impacting education, healthcare, and public service delivery.
Shoshana Zuboff termed this system surveillance capitalism, where Big Tech harvests predictive capital from individuals’ data inputs, securing enormous surplus value in their monopolistic markets. These entities, collectively valued at over $10 trillion, utilise their vast economic and technological might to eliminate competition and control the global flow of data. The scale of their power is evident as even the European Union was compelled to introduce stringent legislation, such as the Digital Markets Act (DMA), purely to regulate these titans. Furthermore, the concentration of computational power needed to run advanced AI models entrenches this oligopoly, making it virtually impossible for smaller nations or public institutions to compete effectively.
THE LOOMING CRISIS OF DIGITAL DEPENDENCE
Just as the Cold War saw the division of economies, data imperialism now renders the Global South completely dependent on foreign corporate infrastructure. This threat is far deeper than mere commercial rivalry; it is a matter of national security and economic survival. Reports from influential bodies like the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) consistently show that over 90% of global data centre storage capacity is concentrated in North America and Europe. Crucially, three major US-based corporations control over 70% of the cloud computing market. This signifies that the physical infrastructure holding sovereign administrative data, citizens’ personal information, and industrial secrets — the very repository of the nation’s digital wealth — is effectively controlled by foreign monopolies.
This reliance on external cloud services generates three critical risks: Massive capital outflow (as countries pay exorbitant subscription fees), data jurisdiction risk (where data is subject to foreign laws, like the US CLOUD Act), and supply chain Vulnerability. The digital dependence translates directly into avenues for imperial powers to exert political coercion and economic manipulation. Unless the ownership and control of this essential digital infrastructure is wrested back, developing nations cannot secure their full economic and political sovereignty.
BUILDING RESISTANCE AND PURSUING ALTERNATIVE PATHWAYS
A decisive, socialist-oriented policy vision is required for progressive forces globally to mount a robust defense against this data imperialism. The foundational step in this struggle must be to transition from private exploitation to recognising data as a social property.
1. Reclaiming revenue via data taxation: Governments should impose a significant levy, or data tax, on corporations that accrue profits from processing national data flows. This revenue must then be strategically redirected towards public investment in digital infrastructure and social welfare.
2. Establishing public digital infrastructure: Critical services and government systems must be systematically liberated from proprietary software dependence. Following the successful trajectory of projects like the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement in Kerala, governments must prioritise the development of public-owned digital platforms and data storage systems based on open standards, guaranteeing transparency and local control.
3. A united global front: Given the deliberate collapse of the WTO’s dispute mechanisms, developing nations must form a united, powerful front at international forums, particularly under the aegis of the United Nations, to establish new, equitable global rules for digital economic cooperation. This alliance is vital, as without achieving technological democracy, genuine political and economic liberation remains an elusive dream.
Beyond the threats posed by conventional military power, data imperialism — quietly executed and deeply integrated — is a critical threat to the security and economic autonomy of the Global South. A unified political resistance, driven by the principles of social equity and sovereignty, is the urgent necessity of our time.
