The second day of the AIFOD Bangkok Summit 2026 opened with a keynote that placed digital sovereignty at the center of global AI governance. Mr. Vikrant Bhatnagar, Chief of Human Resources Information Technology at the United Nations Office of Information and Communications Technology (UN OICT), addressed delegates gathered at the United Nations ESCAP Hall.
In his address, titled “Building Digital Sovereignty Together in the AI Age: Lessons from the UN,” Mr. Bhatnagar said digital sovereignty has emerged as one of the defining challenges of the AI era, particularly for developing nations navigating rapid technological change.
As governments increasingly rely on digital systems for public services, economic management, and governance, he noted that questions of control over data and technology infrastructure have become inseparable from national sovereignty.
Drawing on the United Nations’ own digital transformation journey, Mr. Bhatnagar shared lessons from modernizing Inspira, the UN’s human resources management system, which serves more than 40,000 staff worldwide.
He emphasized that large-scale digital systems must balance security, accessibility, and user empowerment while remaining sensitive to the diverse contexts in which they operate. The UN’s experience, he explained, shows that global cooperation and digital autonomy are not opposing goals but can reinforce each other when guided by strong multilateral frameworks.
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Mr. Bhatnagar also highlighted the importance of inclusive digital infrastructure that functions across regions with vastly different capacities. He concluded with a call for deeper collaboration between international institutions and developing nations, stressing that the benefits of artificial intelligence must be shared equitably and that building digital sovereignty together offers the most viable path forward for the Global South.
The theme of control rather than isolation carried into a major panel discussion later in the morning titled “How Do Developing Nations Keep Data in Our Own Hands?” The session brought together technology executives, policy experts, and regional leaders to challenge prevailing assumptions about data sovereignty in an interconnected digital economy.
Moderated by Sönke Lund, lawyer and partner at Écija, the discussion opened with a reframing of the sovereignty debate. Mikael Loefstrand, CEO of AI Data Defense, argued that data sovereignty is not primarily about physical location but about control. From an engineering perspective, he outlined three essential properties: visibility, enforceability, and reversibility.
Nations must be able to audit how data is accessed and processed, technically prevent misuse or unauthorized copying, and retain the ability to exit, migrate, or delete data without disrupting public services. Without these capabilities, he warned, data localization risks becoming symbolic rather than sovereign.
Panelists repeatedly emphasized that scale determines bargaining power. According to Erin Black, managing director and vice chair of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce and Connect Consultancy, developing nations are left negotiating from a position of weakness due to fragmented national approaches.
Black said shared governance mechanisms, negotiation principles, and permanent regional forums must institutionally support a collective voice. She also underscored the strategic importance of shared research infrastructure, noting that regions move from responding to external standards to shaping them when they generate their own data, metrics, and evaluation frameworks.
Offering a practical perspective from Africa, Ansu Sooful, Group CEO of Aizatron, said AI sovereignty does not require replicating the infrastructure models of high-income countries. Instead, he advocated approaches tailored to resource-constrained environments, including localized models, IoT data sources, and AI systems built in local languages. He stressed that language technology is critical for adoption and impact, and that Africa’s priority is incremental, practical deployment that delivers local economic value.
Sooful also pointed to a growing awareness among African business leaders that low-cost AI solutions from global hyperscalers can become a “poison chalice,” offering short-term convenience while eroding long-term data control and value creation.
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As business awareness aligns with continental policy frameworks being developed by the African Union, he said, Africa’s negotiating position will strengthen significantly.
The panel concluded by highlighting open-source tools and shared platforms as key enablers of sovereignty because they are inspectable, adaptable, and capable of building local expertise.
In a later session focused on applied AI in food security and institutional reform, experts discussed developments in livestock computer vision, predictive crop modeling, and the digital transformation of the Bank of Punjab.
Speakers described how developing countries are using high-precision analytics to stabilize volatile agricultural markets, create long-term planting projections based on historical weather data, and safeguard native crop and animal varieties.
As Day Two closed, the message was clear: in the AI age, sovereignty scales through cooperation, and control, not isolation, will determine who benefits from the digital future.
Day Three will focus on “Launch & Commitment” as the summit draws to a close.