OpenAI for Germany is not sovereign... ?
Stop arguing purity. Start helping people decide.
My LinkedIn flooded again last month.
SAP, OpenAI and Microsoft announced a partnership to launch sovereign ‘OpenAI for Germany’1.
The reactions were predictable: “It’s hosted on Delos Cloud! Not really sovereign!” (Delos Cloud is Azure tailored for the German public sector).
We all love control but I would love to see people put energy where it is useful. I have always felt that arguing whether a product or offering is not truly sovereign is useless.
As an analyst put it: Digital sovereignty is an elastic concept.
When you are a sovereignty purist, you check for every sovereignty announcement and argue about their degree of sovereignty.
I get the motivation. You feel that the industry is using that ambiguity or elasticity in the wrong direction.
What should you do instead of arguing? I have two suggestions.
Continue to post on LinkedIn but instead of ranting, just explain in layman terms the level of control people give up with an offering and trust people to decide based on their risk appetite and budget.
Be opinionated, and for the exact product that you are criticizing, tell what people should use instead. It’s more valuable information.
Both approaches actually help people make better decisions.
Next time you see a sovereignty announcement, skip the purity test.
Ask instead: What control do users give up? What should they use for this exact use case?
Your LinkedIn network will thank you.