Digital Sovereignty Index [v. 1.0]: An expert-coded country ranking of Digital Sovereignty

This article proposes a theory-driven Digital Sovereignty Index (DSI) designed to measure how states accumulate and exercise technological power across hardware, software, cognition, and governance dimensions. The research asks how states position themselves within the emerging global technological order and to what extent they can govern, produce, regulate, and strategically coordinate digital infrastructures and systems. Using a comparative, expert-coded methodology grounded in levels of technological dominance and domains of autonomy, the study evaluates countries through a multilevel scoring framework combining infrastructural, cognitive, and governance capacities. Preliminary findings reveal a persistent divide between the Global North and Global South, the growing importance of governance and cognitive sovereignty, the strategic role of critical resources, and the emergence of China and Russia as alternative technological poles challenging the historical concentration of technological dominance within the Atlantic world. Keywords: Digital Sovereignty, Multipolarity, Technological Governance, Data Colonialism, BRICS+.