Next Generation Internet Initiative. An opportunity to fix the internet
The EU is not an integrated territory if it has no agency over data of people, machines and processes. These are predominantly in the hands of commercial “over the top” non-EU players. Aggregated data leads to new combined services that generate and produce more data. This cycle leaves full innovation capabilities outside of a direct strong response (regulation is a weak response that cannot be a basis for a de jure situation). In the EU consumer expenditure accounts for about 56% of GDP. These consumer actions will increasingly be carried out in the context of the IoT as personalized dynamic pricing is extended down to the smallest purchase (not just airline seats, but washing powder and also meals in restaurants…).
In times of perpetual innovation (not at the edges, but at the core of developments), populist movements on the rise, people worried about their jobs, pensions, everyday expenses, untenable inequality gaps, energy uncertainties, it seems that the single layer governed Asian tigers are finding more productive political answers to ensure a balance between centralization (on infrastructure and sustainable policies) and decentralization (innovation on applications and services). It is not the best balance. They need to engineer a move towards more decentralisation that is incompatible with their political heritage and mindset. There is a strong tendency to also control data and information on top of owning internet (of things) architectures and media production capabilities.
We Europeans, however, can envisage the Next Generation Internet as a coherent set of centralized protocols that can be operationalized in a fully decentralized way; a new conception of the techno-political landscape tuned to the reality of what is happening in every domain of human activity; to be supported, assisted and guided by secure real time data streams of sensor input, to bring big data, AI and dynamic analytics into the heart of decision making and to eventually reform the EU as a platform of services for all.