Utterly bizarre article written almost entirely in the abstract as if discussing an idealized world model rather than the actual material and geopolitical reality that exists today. Not a single time was any country mentioned by name. This may seem like a trivial point but it is in fact the key point in this whole discussion. Because there are only two states today with real digital and "AI" sovereignty: China and the US. And yes, of course sovereignty is tied into nationalism and state power, that's the whole point of it. That's not the deep insight this article thinks it is.
But this article talks as if there exists this large number of independent, sovereign states that are all implementing digital sovereignty policies, when in reality the digital infrastructure which the vast majority of these countries (particularly in Europe) that are talking so much about "digital sovereignty" initiatives use is specifically US infrastructure, and very much under the control of and embedded/merged with the US state apparatus. It completely obfuscates what each country's digital infrastructure actually looks like in practice by talking in these abstract generalities.
And yes, there are one or two "gray zone" countries like Russia and India which are making efforts to try and develop some domestic alternatives, but they are still in very early stages, still dependent on US digital products, and is not clear they will succeed in breaking that dependence. But the EU certainly has no real competitors to US digital services and infrastructure and, for structural geopolitical reasons, will not and cannot have them. Neither does most of the global south. So why are we still talking in the abstract about this topic? Let's instead compare and contrast the only two real independent models of digital development that exist today: China and the US.
The US model cannot be emulated because it is inherently hegemonic and geared toward creating dependence, toward digital rent-seeking and maintaining imperial control - it is fundamentally at odds with sovereignty for anyone except the US. China's model is the opposite: it is one that by its very nature is not designed to be exported but is specific to the national conditions of China. It is a model that requires serious domestic political and economic investment, but has the power to break hegemonic dependence and create real sovereignty. These are the realistically the only options that countries have. There is no third option.