In this Ai Defence Journal Insights article, we read a new whitepaper from Defence Holdings PLC. The paper critically examines the concept of UK sovereignty in the digital age, arguing that critical capabilities now reside in cloud platforms and algorithms rather than traditional military assets. The central theme explores the tension between the necessity of partnering with massive US hyper scalers (like AWS, Microsoft, and Palantir) for scale and innovation, and the resulting vulnerabilities and dependencies created by foreign ownership. To achieve genuine resilience, the paper concludes that the UK must carefully balance these indispensable alliances with deliberate investment in its own sovereign technological capabilities and an industrial base to ensure freedom of action in times of crisis, citing cyberattacks like the one at Heathrow as urgent evidence of this need. The document also compares the UK's position to the strategies of the US, China, and the EU, advocating for the integration of domestic UK tech firms to avoid relying solely on external partners.

1.0 The Shifting Definition of National Sovereignty in the 21st Century

In the last century, national sovereignty was tangible and could be photographed: it was visible in the steel hulls of warships and the roar of fast jets. Today, the assets that define a nation's strength and independence are increasingly invisible. Sovereignty now lies in code, cloud platforms, and algorithms—the dematerialized, critical infrastructure that underpins modern defence, national resilience, and public trust. This fundamental shift has transformed the strategic landscape in three core ways.

Dematerialized Infrastructure

Strategic assets have shifted from physical resources like steel and oil to the digital foundations of the modern state. Fibre-optic cables, sprawling server farms, and global cloud platforms now constitute the essential terrain upon which national security is built. Information is no longer merely a tool of policy; it has become the battlespace itself.

Ambient Conflict

The line between peace and war has become irrevocably blurred. Persistent cyberattacks, coordinated disinformation campaigns, and hybrid operations create a state of "ambient conflict." The recent cyberattack on Heathrow Airport serves as a stark example. While not an act of open warfare, its disruption of critical civilian infrastructure demonstrated how national confidence, and operational readiness can be strategically undermined without a single shot being fired.

Migration of Control

Control over the systems most critical to the digital age—cloud platforms, data pipelines, and AI models—has migrated from the state to the private sector. Crucially, the handful of providers with the scale to deliver these services are predominantly headquartered outside the UK. Their incentives are commercial and global, which do not always align with the specific requirements of UK national sovereignty, creating a structural vulnerability.

This new reality of dematerialized infrastructure, ambient conflict, and migrated control has led the UK to form indispensable but strategically complex partnerships with a small number of major technology firms.

2.0 The Architecture of Dependency: UK Reliance on Foreign Technology Partners

Over the past decade, foreign technology companies, primarily from the United States, have become deeply embedded in the core of the UK's defence and security apparatus. These partnerships provide indispensable capabilities, including the scale, resilience, and innovation that the domestic ecosystem cannot currently replicate alone. This integration is now a fundamental feature of the UK's national security architecture.

The key US-based technology partners fulfil distinct but interconnected roles:

Hyperscale Providers:

The technology giants AWS, Microsoft, Google, and Oracle supply the "backbone" of the UK’s cloud, AI, and cyber infrastructure.

Their platforms provide the vast processing capacity and resilience required to manage the full spectrum of modern defence workloads, from secure communications and logistics to the storage and analysis of immense intelligence datasets.

Advanced Analytics Platforms:

Palantir occupies a central role in this ecosystem, providing advanced platforms that integrate and analyse multiple streams of information for defence and national security missions.

Its proven ability to render complex data usable in near real-time, demonstrated in contexts ranging from logistics support in Ukraine to data fusion within Whitehall, makes it a powerful and attractive capability for UK decision-makers.

Emerging Defence Technology:

Companies like Anduril represent a new strand of the defence-industrial ecosystem, known for rapid innovation in autonomous systems and situational awareness.

Anduril has deliberately positioned itself as a fast-moving alternative to traditional defence primes and is increasingly visible in allied procurement pipelines, including those of the UK.

This deep integration with the US technology ecosystem is formalized by the UK–US Tech Prosperity Agreement. Far from a new initiative, the agreement simply formalises what has already been reality: the UK’s sovereign capability is deeply intertwined with that of its closest ally. While these partnerships are essential for maintaining a modern defence posture, they also introduce critical strategic risks that must be understood and managed.

3.0 Analysis of Strategic Risks and Vulnerabilities

The central challenge facing the UK is not whether to partner with foreign technology firms—such collaboration is essential—but how to manage the associated risks. Without sufficient sovereign safeguards, reliance can harden into a critical dependency, eroding the UK's freedom of action during a crisis. This dependency creates three distinct categories of strategic risk.

Jurisdictional Risk

The US-based hyperscale providers that form the UK's digital backbone are governed by the laws of their home state. This includes the CLOUD Act, a piece of US legislation that can compel these companies to disclose data stored on their systems, regardless of where in the world that data physically resides. This creates a potential conflict with UK sovereignty, where critical national data could become subject to foreign legal obligations in ways that are complex and not always transparent.

Narrative Risk

Firms such as Palantir and Anduril often present themselves as "champions of sovereignty" in UK policy debates, framing their platforms as tools that guarantee national independence. While their capabilities are undeniable, this marketing narrative masks a structural reality: as US businesses, their ultimate alignment is with Washington, not Westminster. This is not a question of goodwill but a fundamental matter of corporate and national allegiance. When sovereignty is defined by ownership and the freedom to act, foreign-owned platforms cannot, by definition, fully deliver it.

Industrial Risk

Procurement frameworks that default to large foreign primes risk stifling the UK's domestic technology industry. The UK has a vibrant ecosystem of sovereign talent and intellectual property, but these firms are often under-leveraged and unable to scale. This trend is widening a dangerous gap: the UK continues to produce world-class ideas, but the platforms that operationalize them are increasingly controlled from abroad. Without deliberate intervention, sovereign innovation will not translate into sovereign industrial capability.

These risks are not theoretical abstractions. The challenge is to integrate foreign partners within sovereign frameworks that ensure dependency does not become absolute. This requires contracts structured with safeguards, architectures that allow for sovereign override, and procurement that deliberately nurtures British innovation alongside global partnerships.

4.0 Case Studies in Digital-Era Vulnerability

The strategic risks inherent in technology dependency are best understood through specific examples that illustrate the practical consequences for UK national life and security.

4.1 The Heathrow Cyberattack (2025)

The cyberattack that disrupted Heathrow Airport in 2025 was not catastrophic, but it was strategically significant. By targeting a symbolic piece of civilian infrastructure, the attackers delayed flights, interrupted logistics, and eroded public confidence. The event underscored three critical truths of the modern era:

Civilian infrastructure is now a frontline: The battlespace extends to transport hubs, utilities, and energy grids.

Hybrid disruption is cumulative: A series of limited incidents can exhaust security resources and sow persistent public doubt.

Sovereignty is fragile without control over the underlying digital stack: The systems underpinning Heathrow are not fully UK-owned, revealing that access to technology is not the same as sovereign control.

4.2 Palantir in UK Defence

Palantir's advanced analytics platforms provide powerful and proven capabilities to UK defence and intelligence operations. The strategic dilemma, however, is not about the value of the tool, but what it means for sovereignty when core decision-making systems are provided by a foreign-owned company. This dependency raises fundamental questions:

• Who owns the datasets and the AI models trained within the platform?
• Can the UK adapt or redirect the platform for its own purposes without external approval?
• When Palantir presents itself as the champion of UK sovereignty, is this rhetoric, or reality?

These questions do not diminish the platform's value; they sharpen the UK's responsibility to define and secure its own terms of sovereignty in the digital age.

4.3 Cloud Outages and Strategic Dependence

The hyperscale cloud platforms provided by AWS, Microsoft, Google, and Oracle are indispensable, offering a level of resilience and scale that no domestic ecosystem can replicate. However, this reliance creates a dual risk. First, operational outages can disrupt critical military and intelligence workloads. Second, and more strategically concerning, is the geopolitical risk. As US-governed entities subject to laws like the CLOUD Act, these providers could face conflicting obligations during a major international crisis, potentially compromising UK interests.

These vulnerabilities are not just passive risks; they are actively being identified and exploited by adversarial actors who have developed sophisticated playbooks to target such dependencies.

5.0 Adversarial Playbooks: Exploiting Digital Dependencies

Adversaries of the UK have systematically integrated cyber and information operations into their national doctrines. They understand that the openness of Western societies is a vulnerability to be exploited. Their playbooks are designed to amplify division, erode public confidence in institutions, and destabilize from within.

5.1 Russia: Hybrid Doctrine

Russia has evolved from crude cyberattacks to highly coordinated hybrid operations that blend cyber intrusion with sophisticated disinformation campaigns.

In Crimea and Ukraine, it prepared the ground for military action with years of narrative warfare designed to question Kyiv's legitimacy and seed doubt among Western publics.

The GRU's hacking of the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 US election demonstrated an ability to weaponize stolen information to shape political narratives at critical moments.

5.2 China: The “Three Warfares”

China’s strategy is codified in its "Three Warfares" doctrine: psychological, legal, and public opinion warfare.

Domestically, it enforces control through censorship on platforms like WeChat and Weibo. Abroad, it pursues a more subtle approach, using the content curation of platforms like TikTok and investments in state media to indirectly shape global perceptions.

In the South China Sea, China combines physical action (building artificial islands) with informational campaigns (framing them as historic entitlements) to create "facts on the ground" and reinforce them with a "narrative in the air."

5.3 Iran and North Korea: Asymmetric Actors

These states leverage cyber as a cost-effective asymmetric weapon to project power and circumvent sanctions.

Iran focuses on disrupting the critical infrastructure of its regional adversaries, combining cyber intrusions with physical sabotage to magnify the psychological effect.

North Korea uses cyber operations for dual purposes: generating revenue for the regime through ransomware and cryptocurrency theft and signalling its strategic capabilities to the West.

5.4 Proxy and Mercenary Groups

A growing trend is the use of semi-deniable groups that provide state sponsors with plausible deniability for hostile acts.

These actors engage in cumulative disruption, including arson, sabotage, and targeted intimidation, creating a constant drumbeat of instability. The Heathrow hack bears the hallmarks of this approach: it was disruptive, deniable, and designed to demonstrate vulnerability.

For the UK, the implication is clear. Sovereignty cannot be secured solely in the physical domain. It must extend to the digital and informational arenas where adversaries already operate as a matter of routine. Without sovereign capability, the UK risks being permanently on the back foot, reacting to attacks rather than shaping the environment.

6.0 A Comparative Analysis of National Sovereignty Strategies

The challenge of securing technological sovereignty in an interconnected world is global. Examining the distinct strategies of the United States, China, and the European Union reveals the range of available options and highlights the uniqueness of the UK's strategic position.

The UK's unique position between these models necessitates a deliberate focus on cultivating its own domestic capabilities to balance its external dependencies.

7.0 Assessing the UK's Sovereign Technology Ecosystem

The UK does not lack the raw materials for technological sovereignty. It possesses a vibrant but fragmented ecosystem of innovative firms, world-class research institutions, and deep talent pools. The core problem is that these sovereign assets are currently under-leveraged and lack the scale to compete with foreign giants.

7.1 SMEs and Specialist Firms

The UK is home to firms at the cutting edge of AI and cyber defence. These include Darktrace, spun out of Cambridge, (AI-driven cyber), Roke Manor Research (mission analytics), Oxford Dynamics (sovereign AI), and Faculty and Mind Foundry (explainable AI). These companies are already delivering trusted, sovereign capabilities.

7.2 Established Primes

Established primes like QinetiQ (robotics, mission systems), BAE Systems (cyber/electronic warfare integration), and Nexor (secure information exchange) provide the UK with a formidable industrial backbone. However, they often deliver digital capabilities in partnership with US vendors, which can dilute the sovereign component of their offerings.

7.3 The OSINT and Analytics Ecosystem

Open-source intelligence (OSINT) is a clear area of UK strength. A growing ecosystem of start-ups and tools, including OSINT Industries, Fivecast ONYX, and ShadowDragon, is being used by law enforcement and counter-terrorism units. Government initiatives like the Cabinet Office and techUK’s INDEX platform aim to standardize these capabilities.

7.4 Academia and Intellectual Capital

The UK's universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, and the London-based DeepMind, remain sovereign jewels that produce world-class research and talent. The central problem is that the intellectual property generated in UK labs is too often absorbed into the R&D pipelines of global hyperscalers, causing a dissipation of national advantage.

The Integration Gap

When viewed together, the pieces of a sovereign technology ecosystem are all present in the UK. However, the system is fragmented. SMEs struggle to scale, universities lose their IP, and large primes rely on foreign partners. What the UK lacks is a sovereign integrator—an entity with the mandate and resources to consolidate these disparate capabilities into operational platforms at scale.

Addressing this integration gap is the central strategic choice facing the UK today.

8.0 Conclusion: The Strategic Imperative for a Deliberate and Balanced Approach

True sovereignty in the digital age is not about isolation but about the ability to act without permission. The UK will always rely on alliances, and its partnerships with US hyperscalers and defence primes are woven into the fabric of its national security. This collaboration is essential, but it is not a substitute for sovereignty. Allies provide capability; they cannot confer independence.

The UK occupies a distinctive position between the US, Chinese, and EU models. It cannot replicate America's industrial scale, will not follow China's model of state control, and lacks the regulatory heft of the EU. Its path must be its own: "open, allied, but sovereign." This requires a deliberate and sustained national effort, as sovereignty will not emerge by accident.

Ultimately, sovereignty requires intent. The UK must now decide whether to deepen its dependency by continuing to consume foreign technology or to build a sovereign industrial base capable of anchoring its partnerships and, most critically, retaining its freedom of action in an uncertain world.