On whose servers does our data sleep?

A nation's health records, its companies' trade secrets and its public institutions' correspondence largely sit today on the cloud infrastructure of a handful of global companies. These services are efficient, cheap and convenient. But we must not forget whose law they answer to in a crisis.

The problem: invisible dependency

Everyone sees an arms embargo; almost no one notices a software license being revoked, a cloud account suspended or an AI service cutting off access. Yet the effect is the same: the decision is in someone else's hands.

The solution: three steps

First, make it a firm rule that critical public data stays in the country under national control. Second, build domestic cloud capacity without waiting for giant investments, through distributed infrastructure that pools the country's idle computing power. Third, build this infrastructure together with the Turkic states to share costs and gain scale.

Atatürk's definition of full independence covered every field: political, economic, military and cultural. Adding the digital field to this list today is not a choice but a necessity.