Southeast Asia's quest for digital sovereignty

Southeast Asia is asserting digital sovereignty in response to infrastructure asymmetries where 68% of global data centers remain controlled by US and European hyperscalers. The article examines how ASEAN nations are implementing data localization regulations and developing sovereign cloud infrastructure to counter the current planetary regime of data extraction. With regional internet penetration reaching 402 million users generating massive volumes of security, health, financial, and biometric data, countries like Singapore (through AI Singapore), Indonesia (via its 2022 Personal Data Protection Law), and Vietnam (with Decree 53) are mandating territorial control over critical information assets. These technical governance frameworks aim to reduce latency, strengthen packet-level security, and retain the computational value of locally-generated data flows. The initiatives signal a structural recalibration of internet architecture to address core-periphery dynamics in global digital infrastructure as the region's digital economy advances toward a projected $1 trillion valuation by 2030.