Rising to the Challenge of Digital Sovereignty for Local Authorities

In a geopolitical context characterized by security threats, international tensions, and the reconfiguration of strategic alliances, local authorities are being urged to strengthen their resilience and autonomy. Local government strategies are becoming a cornerstone of public action, setting priorities, coordinating stakeholders, and optimizing resources for the common good. As local political projects take shape, the regional roadmap of tomorrow hinges on one central factor: controlling digital technologies. Beyond infrastructure and budgets, digital sovereignty is emerging as a foundational principle of public governance.

Digital Challenges at the Core of Local Government Strategies

Digital technology is now an integral part of public service modernization. It forms the invisible backbone of governance, resilience and national sovereignty.

For local authorities, digital technology is simultaneously a performance driver, a lever for transformation and a strategic responsibility. It fuels economic development by enhancing innovation and business attractiveness; improves public performance through streamlined administrative processes and strengthened citizen engagement; supports the ecological transition via smarter resource management; and boosts regional attractiveness by fostering more connected, inclusive and adaptable communities.

Yet unlocking this potential requires addressing several structural challenges: ensuring data sovereignty and service continuity, reinforcing cybersecurity, making informed technological choices, and embedding ethics into innovation.

Two key pillars underpin this transformation: digital sovereignty as a foundation of trust, resilience and control, and technological innovation enabled by cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

Digital Sovereignty: A Foundation for Independence and Trust

Local authorities manage ever-growing volumes of sensitive data (civil records, social services, taxation, education, environmental monitoring and energy systems) essential to shaping and delivering public policies. However, this data is still frequently hosted or processed without deep scrutiny of the origins of the solutions leveraged, potentially exposing regions to legal, economic and geopolitical risks.

Digital sovereignty means enabling local authorities to retain control over their data, infrastructures, and technological choices while complying fully with European regulations or directives such as the GDPR, the NIS2 Directive, the AI Act and the European Cloud Sovereignty Framework. It is also a matter of public trust: citizens must be confident that their personal data is protected, processed transparently and hosted within national or European jurisdictions.

At the same time, local authorities are increasingly targeted by cyberattacks. A single incident can disrupt public services, compromise critical information, and erode citizen confidence. Building an end-to-end cybersecurity strategy covering prevention, detection, response, and resilience is therefore essential. This includes securing both IT and OT systems, raising awareness among staff, and partnering with trusted, long-term cybersecurity actors.

Sovereignty and security go hand in hand: resilient communities depend on digital systems that are both protected and fully controlled.

Cloud and Artificial intelligence: Innovating Without Dependency

Artificial intelligence opens up major opportunities for local authorities, from predictive traffic management and energy optimization in public buildings to infrastructure maintenance, real-time environmental monitoring, and simplified administrative services.

However, AI also raises critical questions of control and dependency. Algorithms developed and operated outside Europe, and models trained on data that is not aligned with European needs or patterns, can create strategic vulnerabilities and ethical risks. To ensure trustworthy AI that is aligned with transparency, explainability and data protection, local authorities must rely on controlled technological architectures and data. This is the foundation of sovereign AI: solutions designed, hosted, and operated locally or within a controlled environment, serving public policies and aligned with democratic and social values.

Cloud computing plays a central role in this model. As the backbone of local digital ecosystems, the cloud enables efficiency, scalability, ensures service availability and strengthens data protection through advanced security mechanisms and recognized certifications. Not all cloud solutions offer the same guarantees. Local authorities must prioritize platforms aligned with the local government’s cloud doctrines to promote secure, controlled and sovereign digital infrastructures. Combining sovereign AI with sovereign cloud environments enables a digital transformation that is sustainable, ethical and resilient.

Turning Ambition into Action

Technology alone cannot meet the challenges of sovereignty, performance, and transformation faced by local authorities. What is needed is a systemic vision, a trusted ecosystem, and solutions that are capable of reconciling security, innovation, and operational impact.

Collaborating in a sovereign digital environment

As work practices evolve and sovereignty requirements increase, local authorities must be supported by collaboration tools hosted locally or within Europe, operated under national jurisdiction, and compliant with the highest security standards. Such trusted environments enable seamless collaboration between staff, elected officials, and partners while ensuring resiliency and control over the technology choices.

Sovereign Cloud: A Trusted Foundation for Modernization

Modernization efforts must be anchored in secure, sovereign cloud infrastructures that comply with national and European standards. These platforms allow local authorities to pool initiatives, control costs, and scale digital innovation progressively without compromising freedom of choice nor control.

Sovereign AI: Performance, Innovation and Public Productivity

Artificial intelligence is a powerful accelerator for local authorities, enabling a shift from reactive management to proactive anticipation and optimization. When designed, trained, and operated on sovereign infrastructures and data, AI becomes a driver of public productivity while remaining transparent, explainable, and aligned with public service values.

Cybersecurity: Ensuring Service Continuity

This technological progress can only be sustained through continuous vigilance against digital threats. Robust cybersecurity is essential to protect critical services, maintain public trust and ensure operational resilience.

In a world where technological dependence has become a strategic risk, local authorities play an important role in defending resolutely a national and European approach to digital technology. Such an approach is open, sustainable, responsible and firmly focused on the public interest and allows local authorities to reconcile security, innovation, and efficiency and build truly resilient and sovereign communities.

This is precisely Atos’s mission: understand each specific situation, advise on the appropriate way forward, and design and deliver a complete, coherent and proven sovereign digital set of solutions for public sector actors. Structured around four complementary building blocks critical for the local public sector – collaboration, cloud, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity – this approach guides organizations through their digital transformation, making technology a lever for long-term resilience and productivity in service of local authorities.

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Posted: 10/03/26