Digital alternatives exist, if we dare to use them

The article was published in Dagens Næringsliv on September 21, 2025. The image shows the Minister of Digitization and Administration, Karianne Tung (Ap).
(Photo: Rikke Løe Hovdal, DN)

Norwegian dependence on American technology is indisputable. However, claiming that we have no alternatives is only half the truth.

By Endre Dingsør, co-founder Forte Digital and initiator of Choose European and Morten Krogh-Moe, CEO of TellusR

Odd Arild Grefstad and Trygve Håkedal pointed out a very real challenge in DN on September 15: Our digital infrastructure is dominated by American companies. The cloud has provided us with much, but also an increasing dependency that makes us vulnerable. It is easy to conclude that "real alternatives" do not exist. 

But that is a misunderstanding. We are indeed at a crossroads.

We cannot catch up to the USA, but we can choose wisely

The contributors describe how AI is becoming fundamental infrastructure akin to power and payment services. 

The point is correct – and precisely why we must ensure that the framework for usage is determined domestically. To fully outsource this is to relinquish more than just data systems; we outsource values, culture, and governance principles. 

No one believes that Norway can compete with the USA or China for the largest language models or the most risk-willing capital. What we can do is own and control the parts of the infrastructure that are most critical for us. 

And we need to be smarter customers. When Norwegian and European actors develop components that offer control, flexibility, and security, both the business sector and the public sector must be willing to buy – not just politely listen and then end up with an American hyperscaler (the largest cloud providers).

The most important investment in Norwegian digital infrastructure is not venture capital. It is demanding customers who choose local solutions and make them strong.

Long-term strategies must be supplemented with actions now

Norway has a digitalization strategy that emphasizes independence and control. Nonetheless, we see that the state in critical areas chooses the opposite: firstly through the AI billion, which in practice can strengthen global platforms if procurement and architecture are not wisely structured. And now through the Marketplace for cloud services, where framework agreements have recently been entered into with IBM, AWS, Oracle, and Google Cloud. 

If the state does not live up to its ambitions, the responsibility in practice will rest on the private sector. The companies that succeed moving forward combine learning from the major players with production solutions built on secure, cost-effective local alternatives.

Grefstad and Håkedal point to a long-term recipe: more research, more capital, and increased innovation capacity. It is a correct analysis – on a ten to fifteen-year horizon. But they say little about the here-and-now dimension. Norwegian companies are today making decisions that lay the foundation for the digital infrastructure of the future. If we lock ourselves in now, even good investments in 2035 will come too late. 

Therefore, we must think in two parts: Yes, we must build long-term capacity. At the same time, we must make choices that provide flexibility, independence, and control. These choices must be made now.

Norway cannot afford to wait ten years

These are not theoretical scenarios. We see the consequences here and now.

The Stargate project in Narvik is a recent example: An AI initiative with dimensions we have never seen in Norway, closely linked to OpenAI – with plans for 100,000 GPUs and several hundred MW. As Aksel Braanen Sterri pointed out in DN on July 31, the project can have significant ripple effects, but without clear demands for Norwegian access, we risk "building infrastructure for others' innovation."

The same is happening when Norwegian industrial companies enter billion-dollar agreements with Microsoft and other global players. The agreements can be profitable in the short term, but they also increase the risk that we bind ourselves to one supplier if the authorities do not simultaneously demand choice, openness, and room for local solutions.

Norwegian companies make choices every day – about which solutions to base our digital systems on. These choices determine whether we build infrastructure for our own innovation or for others'. We cannot turn back the clock to the previous digitalization wave, where we became almost entirely dependent on foreign platforms. But we can avoid making the same mistake twice. 

Norway does not need to be the largest, but we must be conscious. We must own the parts of the infrastructure that give us control and choose solutions that make us flexible. And we must do it now – while the architecture is still being molded.

Alternatives exist. They become real only on the day we choose to use them.

(Read the article at DN: https://www.dn.no/innlegg/digitalisering/sikkerhet/ki/digitale-alternativer-finnes-om-vi-tor-a-bruke-dem/2-1-1874341)