Building AI Sovereignty in the BRICS Countries: Infrastructure, Governance, and Regulation

Building upon past and ongoing research on digital sovereignty and AI governance, this volume examines the multiple dimensions of AI sovereignty within the BRICS context.It situates this analysis within a context of intensified geopolitical competition shaped by AI-driven digital transformation and the growing strategic significance of digital technologies. Across the newly expanded group of BRICS+ countries, approaches to digital sovereignty and AI governance differ substantially in both their underlying rationales and institutional configurations.This volume explores these diverse trajectories by conceptualising AI sovereignty as a state's capacity to understand, develop, and regulate AI systems while preserving self-determination, agency, and control over technological infrastructures and processes.The contributors demonstrate that rationales for AI sovereignty emerge from varied historical, political, and strategic contexts.These range from concerns over technological dependence -