Technological sovereignty: ten keys for Latin America to stop being a digital colony

The region that exports 60% of the world's lithium and feeds 1.5 billion foreign consumers and still imports 92% of the algorithms that deliver water, approve loans or diagnose cancer. The green transition and the re-shoring of semiconductors open a window that will close in less than a decade; if lithium, soybeans or data continue to come out without added value, Latin America will have missed its historic train towards digital and energy sovereignty.

The first step is to turn nationalist rhetoric into public-private venture capital. Chile has just created the FIC-Lithium (US$ 250 million) that shares 30% of the initial investment and only charges royalties if the startup exceeds maturity level 7; the formula needs to be extended to graphene, AI and bioeconomy and to shield funds against political changes through trusts outside the annual budget.

Second, prohibit the export of lithium or copper concentrate without a refining plant under construction. Indonesia vetoed crude nickel in 2020 and in three years attracted US$ 15,000 million in smelters; if the Argentina-Bolivia-Chile triangle requires 35% of local value added, it would stop losing 80% of the margin that China and South Korea are currently left.

Third, deploy a "Latam Stack" of sovereign cloud: nodes in São Paulo, Santiago and Mexico City with open-source software, data-residency by default and legal shielding against the Cloud Act. Uruguay has already migrated 60% of its government data to Antel and saved US$ 12 million annually; The next leap is a regional trust that legally seizes offshore seizure servers.

Fourth, to combine native germplasm banks with CRISPR released under Creative Commons licenses; EMBRAPA already releases resistant soybeans without royalties to cooperatives of less than 500 ha. The challenge is to extend the model to ayahuasca, quinoa or coffee and create an anti-patent protocol that prevents Novartis or GSK from patenting back what is regional heritage.

Fifth, tax each kilogram of lithium with a virtual water quota: 10 m³ that must be compensated with desalination plants or precision irrigation financed by the same royalty. In Atacama, 21 m³ per kg of lithium evaporate while communities buy water in trucks; Turning this external cost into a business obligation is the only way to avoid rebellions that paralyze production.

Sixth, turn ransomware attacks into a continental threat; a digital Tlatelolco-type treaty that obliges cloud providers to open source code to local auditors and creates a regional CERT with a joint response in less than 24 hours. Costa Rica has already reduced response time by 60%; it needs to be financed with 1% of the mining royalty and converted into a permanent agency.

Seventh, retain brains with a refundable tax bond; the state returns in cash up to 30% of the salary of a local PhD if the company exports more than 30% of its production. Colombia applied it in 2021-2023 and retained 480 researchers; the key is to extend it to Brazil and Mexico without the tech giants using it to transfer costs to subsidies.

Eighth, create a lithium-backed LatamCoin; a token issued by central banks that is only used to invoice intra-regional commodities and is shielded from seizures by a trust in Switzerland. This reduces dependence on the dollar and anticipates secondary sanctions that already freeze Venezuelan gold accounts.

Ninth and tenth, launch a land observatory with Sentinel-2 imagery and an army of civil engineers to build climate resilience in 72 hours. Paraguay has already detected 300,000 hectares purchased by off-shores; Brazil and Argentina must force digital cadastre and allocate 1% of the defense to graphene micro-grids and modular desalination plants. If Chile, Uruguay and Colombia execute these ten lines in the next 24 months, the region will be able to jump from the role of quarry to a partner of reference in the global-green economy that is being designed now, not the next century.