Techno-Nationalism: Redefining Power

Noureen Akhtar

National interests fused with science in this era of technological advancement make a comeback in the form of techno nationalism. Moreover, it defines sovereignty, security, and economic competitiveness as it is the motor that is driving scientific progress.

Techno-nationalism redefines sovereignty, economic power, and security, driving nations to pursue self-reliance in critical technologies.

The global order, the alliances, and the trade policies are presently being defined as the new elites of this struggle for technological supremacy are doing battle with each other. At its core, techno-nationalism is founded on the corollary that technological pre-eminence equates with national virility, and foreign reliance on infrastructure amounts to a risky dependence.

This is a new geopolitical reality embodied in the U.S.-China technology conflict. Data security, economic influence, and geopolitical leverage are the reasons that underpin Washington’s moves against Chinese tech giants Huawei and TikTok. The goal of Washington is to curb Beijing’s rise by preventing China’s access to advanced semiconductor technology, and China views this as economic encirclement.

In reaction, China has ramped it up to achieve self-reliance by pouring money into domestic semiconductor production and research in artificial intelligence. An actual technological ecosystem bifurcation is no longer theoretical; it is a full shift to digital spheres based on nationalistic policies.

Similarly, the European Union has adopted the techno-nationalism version in its attempt to achieve strategic autonomy. Ach, one of the EU’s initiatives — the European Chips Act, for instance — and other regulations for American tech giants show that the EU will try to move away from these external technological sources.

The ‘Make in India’, and ‘Digital India’ programs in India under which the country is approaching Indigenous innovation, yet restraining foreign influence in vital areas. At the same time, countries of the Global South are promoting economic integration against technological self-sufficiency in the midst of the conflict of tech supremacy to stay clear of a wider geopolitical power contest for technological supremacy.

The U.S.-China tech war signals a global shift where digital infrastructure and AI are battlegrounds for geopolitical supremacy.

Techno-nationalism goes well beyond geopolitical rivalry and badly disrupts global supply chains. With rising costs and international cross-border collaboration in industries like semiconductor manufacturing no longer benefiting, such industries have to now restructure production.

The reshoring and friend-shoring strategies that consolidate production in politically aligned regions are replacing the traditional model of design, manufacturing, and assembly across multiple nations. However, these changes also raise production costs and dampen innovation through a trade-off of collaboration over competition.

A more securitized technology is coupled with the reconfiguration of global supply chains. Tech companies are now considered not only to be commercial entities but also in terms of an integral component of national power structures. With that in mind, national defense has become a contributor to bottom-of-the-waterfall areas, such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, cyber security, and more.

While such focus can yield breakthroughs, the use of technology in (surveillance, cyber coercion, information warfare) technology deployment causes ethical concerns. It is clear that digital tools have been used as instruments of state power in recent cyberattacks that have had a disruptive effect on democratic processes.

In addition, techno-nationalism based on well-founded security concerns leads to a digital arms race where the growth of emerging technologies such as 5G networks and artificial intelligence can turn them into sites for fierce competition. If we cannot validate that our technological self-sufficiency becomes a nation of internal dependency on the intertwining powers of digitals.

It is playing around like this in Africa where Chinese firms have built critical digital infrastructure that can lead to permanent dependencies. This competition also heightens the strategic stakes as Western efforts on shaping alternative frameworks of digital governance take place concurrently.

While national security drives technological self-sufficiency, excessive fragmentation risks undermining global cooperation on cybersecurity, climate change, and innovation.

But such techno-nationalism indeed risks fragmenting the global technological order, whacking it into isolated silos, something that militates less against cooperation in general with states, toward cooperation on cybersecurity, climate change, and health innovation in particular. It is important to strike the right balance between national interests and global convergence to deal with common difficulties.

Any successful move towards integration has to be achieved, not through technological tribalism, but by incorporating national priorities within such a cooperative framework that the future of international stability and economic prosperity will rest upon. The time in which nations will have to navigate is a strategic prudent one.

The Author is a PhD Scholar (SPIR-QAU) and has worked on various public policy issues as a Policy Consultant in the National Security Division (NSD), Prime Minister Office (PMO). Currently, she is editor Stratheia and works for Islamabad Policy Research Institution (IPRI) as a Non-Resident Policy Research Consultant. Her work has been published in local and International publications. She can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/noureen-akhtar-188502253/  and akhtarnoureen26@gmail.com  She Tweets @NoureenAkhtar16