After years of governments and vendors promoting digital sovereignty, 59 percent of large organizations now believe complete technological independence is unattainable, according to new research from Capgemini published in September 2026. Instead, two-thirds have embraced what the consultancy terms "resilient interdependence" — accepting ongoing dependence on external technology providers while working to prevent those relationships from jeopardizing mission-critical functions. The findings suggest a pragmatic shift away from aspirations of full control over data, infrastructure, and software operations.
The survey, which polled 1,300 business and technology leaders in April 2026 at companies and government agencies with annual revenues or budgets exceeding $1 billion, revealed how deeply entrenched these dependencies have become. Capgemini's Digital Sovereignty Index, analyzing 866 organizations, showed that 86 percent face substantial exposure to foreign or externally managed supply chains. Just 14 percent reported comprehensive visibility into dependencies across their broader technology ecosystems. Extricating themselves won't happen quickly: 36 percent said switching away from a critical technology provider would require over a year, while another 10 percent reported having no viable alternative whatsoever. European respondents proved particularly open to compromise, with three-quarters defining sovereignty through the lens of resilient interdependence compared with half of US respondents, and 56 percent of British participants primarily linking sovereignty to resilience and risk mitigation.
The topic hasn't vanished from executive agendas — 93 percent of respondents confirmed board-level discussions, and 44 percent ranked it among their board's highest priorities. Artificial intelligence emerged as the leading sovereignty concern for three-quarters of organizations, surpassing cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, data, and software. Yet willingness to pay for sovereign technology remains limited: just under half would accept a premium, and among those willing, the average acceptable markup stood at 23 percent. When operational disruptions actually occurred, only 42 percent of affected organizations had contingency plans ready — with almost two-thirds of US organizations prepared versus slightly more than one-third in Europe and Asia-Pacific.
Capgemini argues the solution isn't pursuing total technological independence but rather identifying which systems and capabilities warrant tighter oversight, while establishing alternatives and recovery strategies for everything else. Digital sovereignty broadly encompasses an organization's capacity to maintain authority over its data, infrastructure, software, and essential technology operations, including hosting locations and governing jurisdictions. The findings point to an uncomfortable reality: organizations are threading a narrow path between dependence and control, trying to balance practical constraints against strategic risk. That one in 10 organizations cannot currently replace a critical provider at all suggests this embrace of interdependence may reflect necessity as much as strategy, forcing companies to map where the exits actually exist before they need them. The question facing boards isn't whether to accept outside dependencies, but which ones they can afford to live with and which demand backup plans they don't yet have.