In April, Nigeria asked Google, Microsoft, and Amazon to set concrete deadlines for opening data centers in the country. Nigeria has been making this demand for about four years, but the companies have so far failed to fulfill their promises. Now, Nigeria has set up a working group with the companies to ensure that data is stored within its shores.

Just onshoring the data center does not solve the problems.

You can't be sure no data travels to the US servers, some data does need to travel to the US servers, and the entire DC is still subject to US software and certificate keychains. It's better, but not good or safe.

I need to channel my inner Mike Ehrmantrout to the US tech companies and government: you had a good thing going you stupid son of a bitch. You had everything you needed and it all ran like clockwork. You could have shut your mouth, cooked, and made as much money as you needed, but you just had to blow it up, you and your pride and your ego.

Seriously, this is a massive own goal by the US government. This is a massive loss to US hegemony and influence around the world that's never coming back.

It has never been easier to build sovereign clouds with off the shelf and open source tooling. The best practices are largely documented, software is commoditized, and there are plenty of qualified people out there these days and governments staring down the barrel of existential risk have finally got the incentive to fund these efforts.