Podcast / Tech Won’t Save Us / Aug 21, 2025

Why Countries Must Fight for Digital Sovereignty

On Tech Won’t Save Us, Cecilia Rikap warns against overdependence on US tech companies.

The Nation Podcasts
The Nation Podcasts

Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.

Why Countries Must Fight For Digital Sovereignty | Tech Won’t Save Us
byThe Nation Magazine

Paris Marx is joined by Cecilia Rikap to discuss how countries’ dependence on US tech companies is harming them and why they need to get serious about digital sovereignty.

Cecilia Rikap is Associate Professor in Economics at University College London and Head of Research at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose.

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Donald Trump speaks during the “Winning the AI Race” summit on July 23, 2025 in Washington, DC.

(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

Paris Marx is joined by Cecilia Rikap to discuss how countries’ dependence on US tech companies is harming them and why they need to get serious about digital sovereignty.

Cecilia Rikap is an associate professor in economics at University College London and head of research at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose.

Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe.

The Nation Podcasts
The Nation Podcasts

Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.

Government Is Putting AI Before People and the Planet w/ Matt Haugen / Tech Won’t Save Us
byThe Nation Magazine

Governments are prioritizing data centers and AI at the expense of communities and the planet, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Matt Haugen joins Paris Marx to discuss the AI First report, which examines how national strategies are dismantling environmental protections and enacting market policies that allow a handful of megacorporations to abscond with billions of dollars, and what an alternative policy agenda focused on people and the planet could achieve instead.

Matt Haugen is Research and Editorial Manager at the Climate and Community Institute.

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Paris Marx

Paris Marx is the author of Hyperscale: The Ambition and Excess of Big Tech's Data Empires. He hosts the Tech Won’t Save Us podcast and writes the Disconnect newsletter.

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