Switzerland's uphill climb to AI sovereignty  

Switzerland has invested millions to reduce its dependence on American tech giants. But for many, true sovereignty in artificial intelligence (AI) remains out of reach. Artificial intelligence powers global services ranging from translation tools to cloud computing. Yet most of this technology remains in the hands of a few foreign companies, mainly in the United States and China. This has raised fears that political or commercial interests could one day restrict access to essential digital tools. "Governments have realised that they have to invest in sovereign technologies if they don't want to be hostage to a small circle of foreign interests," says David Shrier, a professor of AI and innovation at Imperial College London and an expert on sovereignty in AI. For its part, Switzerland has invested millions in IT infrastructure and large language models (LLMs). This has led to the construction of the supercomputer “Alps”, the eighth-most powerful in the world, and the development of ...