Associate Prof & Deputy Co-Director at @iipp-ucl.bsky.social at UCL, Investment committee CoDevelop.fund, co-founder TeachingPublicService.digital. Digital Government & Digital Public Infrastructure, ReCollect co-founder & CEO, Father, Negotiator & Learner
"Europe is tackling the cloud oligarchy. Why isn't Canada?" New op-ed by Curtis McCord and I where we build on Parting Clouds, our Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project report in the @financialpost.com financialpost.com/technology/e...
Europe is tackling the cloud oligarchy. Why isn't Canada?In Canada and Europe, the big three hyperscalers — Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet — control more than 70% of the cloud market. Find out morefinancialpost.comNotes from my Chatham House talk on data localization, now a post. TLDR: localization is an answer waiting for a question. Name the threat... CLOUD Act, cyber attack, fire, missiles and you quickly find no single model covers them all. Think portfolio of options, not a sovereign fortress.
Data Localization is the Answer. What Was the Question?Last week I gave a talk at Chatham House for an event on 'Is Data Localisation the Answer to Data Sovereignty? Location, Control and the Architecture of Trust', organised in collaboration with their Digital Ambassadors Forum. I really enjoyed the conversation and questions and had a number of people ask for slides and more details so have put together the following summary.eaves.caWhat a joy to be on stage with Emily and talking digital era state capacity.
UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose🤖 State Capacity in the Digital Era We kick off Day 2 of the Forum with an insightful conversation between Emily Middleton, Director General of the UK Government Digital Service (GDS), and IIPP Professor of Digital Government @eaves.ca on digital state capacity.
A real privilege last week, putting an argument I've been developing to the Eurogroup, the finance ministers of the euro area — that the route to digital sovereignty isn't just about building capacity but in making cloud a utility. I wrote a blog post on what I shared.
Cloud Is a Competitiveness Question — A Note to Europe’s Finance MinistersKyriakos Pierrakakis opening up the session on Tech Sovereignty at the Eurogroup The Commoditized Stack Over the past year or so I've been developing an argument around confronting concentration and dependency at the cloud level of the technology stack: that at best digital sovereignty is a poor frame for this conversation, at worst it suggests pathways that are neither sustainable nor desirable.eaves.caAm knee deep in grading but... in breaks I've built out a new part of eaves.ca... now library.eaves.ca which... I think looks pretty slick.
Writing & Publications — David EavesThe collected writing of David Eaves: articles, reports, papers, and teaching cases on digital public infrastructure, digital government, state capacity, and technology policy.library.eaves.caI'm excited about the piece because it takes two forces/interest that look to be in opposition: (1) EU's desire for sovereignty vs (2) US desire for force projects ...and shows that they could become forces for convergence/agreement.
David EavesBeen writing a few pieces about the commoditized stack & why we should shape the cloud market to be more like a utility. This new piece in @foreignpolicy.com is why this is critical to NATO. (Paywalled) NATO’s Digital Back End Could Fall Apart Without Change foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/09/n...
Been writing a few pieces about the commoditized stack & why we should shape the cloud market to be more like a utility. This new piece in @foreignpolicy.com is why this is critical to NATO. (Paywalled) NATO’s Digital Back End Could Fall Apart Without Change foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/09/n...
NATO’s Digital Back End Could Fall Apart Without ChangeShared standards on cloud services are urgently needed.foreignpolicy.comFrom aisle 32 seat C, a hero emerges.
Waldo JaquithI’m flying home through Chicago, because it will be dinner time and I want a torta. I have a 42-minute layover. 😬 Our arrival gate is B7. Frontera is at B10. I can order via Frontera’s app when we land, and snag it as I pass by. Or so goes my theory. 🤞
Unless it’s a journey! The hopeful are becoming excited. The excited are becoming anxious and the anxious are becoming angry…
Keldon BesterWell at least anxiety seems to have plateaued
Different AI worldviews are driving different AI policies and strategies. It's making international alignment harder. I'm also worried that its causing countries to build strategies on where they *hope* AI is going, not where it is.
UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose🤖 Governments Can’t Agree on What AI Actually Is IIPP Co-Deputy Director @eaves.ca and MPA alum Sarosh Nagar's new @foreignpolicy.com article examines how different countries’ definitions of AI make it difficult to develop a shared agenda. 🔗 Read more here: buff.ly/SpV6fTC
Excited to share that on May 26th in Brussels I'll deliver the Jean Monnet Lecture at the Lisbon Council's High-Level Roundtable on 'Sovereignty in Practice: A New Path for Europe’s Digital Success'. More info here: mailchi.mp/4e9049c437bd...
SAVE THE DATE: High-Level Roundtable on 'Sovereignty in Practice' > 26 May 2026mailchi.mpOne reason getting international alignment on AI is hard is because countries assume, or are hoping for, different futures. We map what we think are the salient perspectives and how that predicts countries positions. foreignpolicy.com/2026/05/11/g...
Governments Can’t Agree on What AI Actually IsWithout clear definitions, governance is impossible.foreignpolicy.com