Roman Romanov: Digital Sovereignty Determines Whose Rules Reality Will Be Built On
The export of digital ecosystems is becoming one of the instruments of Russia's presence in the world, and the anxiety caused by the pace of change should be answered not by halting technology but by learning to manage it.
New formats of technological partnership with foreign countries will be discussed at the II Global Digital Forum, to be held from October 8 to 10 at the Mechta complex in Moscow's Gorky Park. Roman Anatolyevich Romanov, sociologist, political consultant, and member of the Russian Association of Political Consultants, told the online publication IT Russia about digital twins of people and production facilities and how digitalization relates to new industrialization and technological leadership. He emphasized the significance of the topics discussed at the forum and added that in the digital age the main choice is whether we will simply use someone else's environment or become its full-fledged owners.
– We increasingly live in a doubled reality. Alongside the material world, a digital layer is emerging: enterprises, cities, machines, and entire production systems are acquiring digital twins. In a certain sense, digital twins are appearing for people as well — as a combination of our data, digital traces, profiles, and behavioral models. And interaction is already taking place not only with the person but also with their digital projection.
This raises a fundamental question: who sets the rules for the existence of this new, hybrid reality? Who determines the standards, the architecture of platforms, the ways data are stored and used, and the forms of interaction between people and the state, business, and other people? That is why digital sovereignty is no longer just a matter of information security. It is a question of whose rules will govern a significant part of social reality.
For Russia, the topic of digital ecosystems is particularly interesting here. An ecosystem is not just a set of services. When it enters external markets, it brings with it technological standards, interaction protocols, competencies, technical support, and long-term connections. In this sense, the export of digital ecosystems is becoming one of the modern instruments of a country's presence in the world, alongside traditional economic and cultural ties.
There is also a second, industrial dimension. Amid the technological transformation of industry, digital twins make it possible to see production as a single manageable system: modeling processes, identifying bottlenecks faster, and improving management transparency and labor productivity. That is why the conversation about digitalization today is directly linked both to new industrialization and to achieving technological leadership.
Of course, the pace of these changes causes quite understandable psychological anxiety in many people. But the most productive response to that anxiety is not to try to halt the formation of digital reality, but to learn to manage it. Ultimately, the key question of the digital age is very simple: will we merely exist inside an environment created by someone else, or will we ourselves learn to be its subjects and owners?
