Early Action to Address the “Sovereignty Gap” (Slides)

This presentation provides a visual and condensed overview of the policy recommendations for securing Japan's digital sovereignty. It introduces the concept of the "sovereignty gap"—the absence of a national standard for assessing the sovereignty of digital services—and illustrates its scale with key statistics. Notably, it points out that 97% of systems on the government's shared cloud infrastructure run on a single overseas service, Japan's annual digital-related net payments abroad have reached the ¥6.6 trillion range, and 65% of the sovereignty objectives covered by the EU's framework are not assessed by Japan's current systems.
The presentation argues that this gap prevents informed decision-making for procurers and users and hinders providers from converting trustworthiness into a competitive advantage. It then outlines five concrete recommendations to bridge this gap: 1) Begin joint consideration of a Japanese sovereignty assessment framework; 2) Standardize information disclosure on cloud sovereignty; 3) Ensure the ability to switch cloud providers; 4) Map sector-specific cloud dependencies, starting with state-managed medical infrastructure; and 5) Ensure international interoperability as a practical implementation of DFFT. The proposal is framed by four basic principles—fair assessment, phased implementation, international alignment, and a division of public/private roles—and aligns with the Japanese government's Basic Policy 2026, aiming to establish open AI sovereignty and strengthen the nation's digital infrastructure resilience.