From Digital Sovereignty to Data-Driven Power Architecture: How Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, and Global Governance Are Transforming the International System

Abstract

This study examines, within an interdisciplinary framework, how digital technologies are transforming international relations in the domains of security, economics, and diplomacy. It treats developments in artificial intelligence, blockchain, quantum computing, and cybersecurity not as separate technical innovations but as interconnected processes that reconfigure states’ power capacities and their relations of interdependence. A qualitative and interpretive method is adopted, combining a review of the literature, content and discourse analysis, and a comparative examination of the digitalization strategies of the United States, China, the European Union, and Russia. The findings show that cyber conflict opens an enduring arena of contestation that complements rather than replaces traditional military force; that AI-enabled systems accelerate defense and intelligence processes while deepening problems of oversight and accountability; and that quantum computing is fundamentally altering the encryption order and approaches to national security. On the economic plane, the competition between central bank digital currencies and decentralized finance is redefining the notions of monetary sovereignty and financial control. The growing power of large technology companies calls state sovereignty into question, while disinformation and algorithmic targeting create new risks for democratic processes. The study concludes that digitalization is a multilayered process whose outcome is not predetermined, and that grasping this transformation requires extending the classical approaches to power and interdependence so as to encompass the command of data, algorithms, and networks.