📅 Thursday, March 26, 2026 | 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
FOLLOW US had the privilege of taking part on Thursday, March 26, in an INR working group on Sovereignty, Robustness and Resilience, led by Vincent Courboulay, HDR Associate Professor at La Rochelle University. The session focused on low-tech technologies and their relevance in building robust, resilient and sovereign approaches.
On the agenda:
- Low-tech as a lever for robustness and sovereignty: challenges and perspectives
- Presentation of the conclusions from the White Paper published in collaboration with CIGREF
- A time for discussion and collective reflection on our practices
Here is my summary:
Towards a resilient digital world: low-tech, sovereignty and adaptation in times of permacrisis
The second meeting of the Institut du Numérique Responsable (INR) working group dedicated to resilience, robustness and sovereignty confirmed a now unavoidable observation: ecological transition and adaptation to climate change are no longer strategic options, but immediate imperatives. In a context of polycrisis — climate, geopolitical, energy and financial crises — organizations must now deal with frequent and lasting disruptions. Digital technology, which expanded massively in the 1980s and 1990s under the illusion of a stable world, was not designed to face today’s permacrisis.
Robustness and resilience: a new strategic framework
Supply chain disruptions, the massive increase in demand (+309% for certain components), and the geographical concentration of digital resources — particularly in microelectronics — show that risks are no longer theoretical. They have become the norm.
Several examples were presented:
- A shortage of server blades forced a video game publisher to refuse new users.
- Drought in Taiwan disrupted global chip production, prompting BPCE’s Responsible Digital team to accelerate its thinking on extending workstation lifespans from 5 years to a possible 7 years.
- A European integrator had to postpone the launch of a sovereign AI cloud in Luxembourg by one year: €800,000 in investment was blocked because €1,000 worth of network cards were unavailable.
- The end of Windows 10 support and the mandatory move to Windows 11, often requiring the replacement of “obsolete” computers, was handled in some organizations by replacing only the strictly necessary components, at a lower cost.
These examples show that the robustness of a system now depends as much on technological choices as on the resilience of its supply chain.
Low-tech: a pragmatic response, not a step backwards
At a time when discourse swings between technological acceleration and forced degrowth, low-tech appears as an alternative path. It is neither a regression nor a minimalist technological fetish.
It is a structured approach based on sobriety, resilience and adaptation to real-world constraints.
Digital low-tech aims, for example, to:
- extend the lifespan of equipment,
- reduce dependency on rare resources,
- simplify architectures,
- limit external dependencies, especially non-European ones,
- prioritize what is necessary over what is merely accessory.
The example of Lada vehicles, known for being robust and repairable, was used as a metaphor: a simple, maintainable system designed to last can sometimes respond better to today’s challenges than complex and fragile solutions.
To better understand this approach, it is important to recall its foundations.
The four pillars of low-tech
- Right need
Only what is truly useful is implemented. No over-functionality, no artificial complexity: the goal is to meet the need precisely, and nothing more. - Simplicity
Less complexity mechanically means less fragility. Simple systems are more reliable, easier to understand and easier to maintain. - Maintainability
What matters is the ability to keep functioning over time. Repairing, adapting and evolving rather than replacing: the priority is longevity and repairability. - Autonomy
Being able to use, repair and adapt a solution without depending on external actors or rare resources. Autonomy limits the risks linked to supply disruptions and technological dependencies.
These four levers provide an operational framework for designing digital systems that are better equipped to face crises, more sustainable and less dependent on fragile ecosystems.
Moving beyond technological fantasies: innovation refocused on essentials
The French Ministry of Culture perfectly illustrates this desire for digital sobriety guided by risk control. Its particularly rigorous approach is based on a detailed and methodical analysis of real needs. Each year, nearly forty project requests are reviewed, but only three are ultimately selected. The others are rejected because they are considered redundant with existing solutions or based on “technological fantasies” disconnected from operational reality. This demanding selection process is not a brake on innovation: on the contrary, it ensures that each initiative is based on an intimate knowledge of the information system, avoids purely technicist drift and strengthens the organization’s overall resilience through fully assumed risk management.
Digital sovereignty: now a decisive criterion
Within BPCE, sovereignty has become an explicit selection criterion. French and European software publishers receive better ratings. Examples from the public sector, such as the sovereign CANUT contract and UGAP’s support for French cloud solutions, point in the same direction.
Associated LinkedIn link:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/gwilherm-le-donn%C3%A9-372550_souverainetaeznumaezrique-technologie-si-share-7424106510089281536-bCzG
Adapted technical practices: from hardware to software
Extending hardware lifespan
Example from CD06:
- maximum retention of familiar PCs already 4 to 6 years old;
- RAM upgrade from 8 GB to 16 GB;
- migration to SSD;
- targeted replacement of parts such as batteries.
The purchase of refurbished equipment was mentioned, but is sometimes considered too problematic for after-sales support, for example in cases of faulty batteries or keys.
Reducing dependency on public LLMs
Some teams are experimenting with legacy retrofitting:
- moving from a public cloud LLM, to a local LLM hosted on internal infrastructure, then to classic parsing when that is sufficient.
This is a form of software low-tech: reducing unnecessary complexity.
The need for transparency: measuring better in order to act better
As Nicolas pointed out, transparency is essential: understanding dependency chains, tracing suppliers and assessing technological maturity. The KnowTheChain ICT 2025 benchmark and Ascend Partners’ digital resilience index can help make progress in this direction.
KnowTheChain ICT benchmark 2025: Supply chain traceability and transparency.
Conclusion: navigating between going backwards and rushing forwards
Digital technology is entering an era of deep transformation. The promise of continuous growth and material abundance is no longer sustainable. The issue is not to give up on innovation, but to adapt it to a more constrained and uncertain world.
Low-tech offers a pragmatic path:
doing better with less, but above all doing things in a more robust and sustainable way.
Digital resilience cannot simply be declared: it must be built through measured technological choices, a better understanding of our dependencies, and greater sovereignty in a changing world.
One participant even suggested setting up a reward system, such as “Gérards” or “Ig Nobels”, to promote good practices while also highlighting the worst practices so they are not repeated. To be continued!
INR news:
Towards a shared deliverable: adaptation, sovereignty and resilience
The working group is preparing a structuring deliverable, potentially including:
- a climate change adaptation plan applied to digital technology,
- a maturity and appetite grid for low-tech,
- a shared framework for digital resilience and sovereignty.
This work is based in particular on INR’s HIT Hub:
https://gitlab.com/digitalresilienceinitiative/adri-irn
INR will also have a one-hour slot at the next Digital Sovereignty Fair.
