How Nations are Forging Their Own Digital Futures with Sovereign AI

There has been a lot of talk and media coverage in recent months around sovereign AI and its implications for countries and corporations. Driven by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s widely publicized call for nations to adopt sovereign AI, the push has resonated with world leaders and CEOs, who have emphasized the need for AI infrastructure for digital sovereignty. 
 
But sovereign AI is not a new idea. ASUS has been actively developing sovereign AI infrastructure and providing customized AI solutions to clients since our first project in 2018, which resulted in Taiwan’s first AI supercomputer, Taiwania 2. In 2021, Taiwan AI Cloud was established as a subsidiary of ASUS to promote a public-private partnership with the Taiwan government, and has since worked on many large-scale projects.  
 
ASUS and Taiwan AI Cloud act as a strategic partner and enabler, providing the foundational technology, expertise, and ongoing support to help countries establish and maintain their own secure, high-performance, and culturally relevant AI capabilities—all under their national control. 

What is sovereign AI? 

Sovereign AI represents a nation's or organization's strategic pursuit of independence in artificial intelligence. It encompasses the ability to develop, control, and deploy AI technologies autonomously, aligning with specific values, security needs, and economic objectives. This involves fostering domestic AI capabilities, including research and development, talent acquisition, and infrastructure building, to reduce reliance on foreign entities. 

Key components include data sovereignty — ensuring control over data used for AI training — and establishing governance frameworks that promote ethical and responsible AI development. Concerns over national security, economic competitiveness, and data privacy fuel the drive for sovereign AI. By cultivating independent AI capabilities, nations aim to protect themselves from cyber threats, maintain strategic advantages, and ensure AI development aligns with their ethical standards and societal benefits. 

The different types of sovereign AI 

While the general definition of AI sovereignty might sound straightforward, in reality, very few countries possess the end-to-end manufacturing capability to source all components of an advanced AI system locally. Technology supply chains are renowned for being scattered; therefore, sovereign AI is a multi-layered concept that goes far beyond simply manufacturing every chip. For most nations, especially emerging markets, sovereign AI is about achieving critical control, local ownership, and strategic independence over their AI capabilities. 

The different types of sovereign AI can include: 

• Data Sovereignty – Ensuring that a nation's sensitive data, especially citizen data, stays within its borders, is processed and stored locally, and is governed by domestic laws. This prevents foreign access or manipulation of critical national information. 
• Algorithmic and Model Sovereignty – Controlling the development, training, and deployment of the AI models themselves and ensuring these LLMs reflect local languages, cultures, values, and regulations, rather than relying solely on models trained on foreign data and biases. This allows for truly culturally relevant and nationally aligned AI. 
• Operational and Infrastructure Sovereignty – Building and operating AI infrastructure (data centers, compute clusters, etc.) within the country's borders, managed by its own citizens. While the foundational chips might come from global partners, the entire operational control, maintenance, and security of that infrastructure reside domestically. ASUS plays a key role here by providing powerful, secure, and locally deployable hardware solutions. 
• Talent Sovereignty – Empowering a nation's workforce to develop, manage, and innovate with AI. Building local AI expertise and fostering a domestic ecosystem of developers and researchers. This ensures sustainable, long-term AI capabilities that are not dependent on external human resources. 
• Application Sovereignty – Developing and deploying AI applications tailored to a nation's specific economic, social, and defense needs, whether it's for healthcare, agriculture, education, or public safety, without external constraints on their use or development. 

The first steps to AI sovereignty 

When a country or corporation is considering its sovereign AI goals, ASUS and Taiwan AI Cloud act as strategic partners to enable the provision of technology, expertise, and ongoing support to help clients establish and maintain their own secure, high-performance, and culturally relevant AI capabilities under their national control. Typically, a multi-phase process is designed, consisting of: 

• Phase 1 – Strategic Planning & Design: Our Taiwan AI Cloud experts collaborate with governments, research centers, and companies to understand a country's AI goals (e.g., local language models, national security AI, smart cities, healthcare AI). We analyze their data, tech infrastructure, and workforce skills. Then, we develop a custom AI plan, recommending necessary hardware (servers, GPUs, networking) and software to achieve their objectives, ensuring data security within the country.
• Phase 2 – Build, Deploy, & Localize: Upon design approval, Taiwan AI Cloud acts as an AI Compute Foundry, deploying the physical and virtual infrastructure. This involves procuring high-performance equipment (e.g., ASUS servers, powerful GPUs), building the in-country data center, and installing essential software, including a Kubernetes-based AI platform. We also focus on AI model localization, adapting or developing models with local data to understand the country's language, culture, and needs. We provide end-to-end AI infrastructure deployment, ensuring a secure and efficient operational stack within the nation's control. 
• Phase 3 – Operational Empowerment & Sustainable Growth: After deployment, Taiwan AI Cloud provides ongoing support for AI infrastructure operation and maintenance, empowering the country to manage systems, process data securely, train localized AI models, and develop applications. While we offer managed services and public cloud access, our focus is on enabling national enterprises to develop secure, sovereign AI solutions. This includes knowledge transfer and partnerships to build a self-sustaining local AI ecosystem and workforce, empowering the nation to control its AI destiny. 

A complete set of tools 

One of our most powerful tools in this journey is our AI Foundry Service (AFS) – a full-stack, turnkey solution designed to empower nations and enterprises in building secure, scalable, and autonomous Sovereign AI systems. This offering encompasses high-performance computing hardware, optimized software stacks, and a complete suite of cloud-native and on-premise AI tools that accelerate both government-led digital strategies and enterprise AI adoption. 

Through its AI Compute Foundry, Taiwan AI Cloud delivers end-to-end AI infrastructure solutions, integrating high-performance ASUS servers, data center infrastructure, and AI-optimized development environments. Designed for security and reliability, this service supports sovereign AI infrastructure buildouts with rapid deployment capabilities—large-scale AI data centers can go live in as little as eight weeks—backed by comprehensive operational support.  

Furthermore, the AI Model Foundry provides industry-specific model training services built on robust LLM frameworks like our Formosa Foundation Model, optimized for local language, values, and use cases, accelerating the deployment of Gen AI applications across diverse sectors.  

Complementing this, Taiwan AI Cloud also operates Asia's first commercial AIHPC supercomputer for industry, offering AI Compute Resell services that optimize GPU resource allocation and foster a thriving AI innovation ecosystem by efficiently connecting enterprises with AI startups through the AIHPC Accelerator. 

The Path Forward: Empowering Sovereign AI 

Sovereign AI is not merely a buzzword; it's a strategic imperative for nations and organizations aiming to safeguard their data, nurture local innovation, and maintain control over their technological destiny in the AI era. It's about building a future where AI serves a nation's unique needs and values, securely and autonomously. 

With our deep experience, proven methodologies, and robust AI Foundry Service, ASUS and Taiwan AI Cloud are committed to being the trusted partners empowering countries worldwide to achieve true digital sovereignty. We believe in building secure, resilient, and future-proof AI capabilities that serve their unique needs and values for generations to come, ensuring AI is a force for national good and global progress. 
 
For more information about ASUS AI infrastructure solutions, please see here.