Moti­on Juil­lard (24.3209): For a sove­reign digi­tal infras­truc­tu­re in Switz­er­land in the age of arti­fi­ci­al intel­li­gence (AI)

Sub­mit­ted text

The Fede­ral Coun­cil is ins­truc­ted to draw up a Revi­si­on of the law so that the fede­ral govern­ment, in coope­ra­ti­on with the can­tons, rese­arch insti­tu­tes and the pri­va­te sec­tor, can Buil­ding a sove­reign digi­tal infras­truc­tu­re (inclu­ding a cloud ser­vice and an inde­pen­dent exch­an­ge plat­form) can dri­ve for­ward, co-finan­ce, con­trol and moni­tor the deve­lo­p­ment of AI. This moti­on aims to streng­then Switzerland’s cyber­se­cu­ri­ty and digi­tal sove­reig­n­ty while addres­sing the new chal­lenges asso­cia­ted with AI, main­tai­ning Switzerland’s com­pe­ti­ti­ve­ness in the digi­ta­lizati­on sec­tor and pro­tec­ting Swiss demo­cra­cy from poten­ti­al exter­nal interference.

Justi­fi­ca­ti­on

In view of the rapid deve­lo­p­ment of AI, which is also accom­pa­nied by more cyber thre­ats, many con­cerns have beco­me real risks. The­re is an urgent need for the Fede­ral Coun­cil to deve­lo­ped a digi­tal infras­truc­tu­re and an inde­pen­dent and sove­reign net­work in par­al­lel with its digi­tal stra­tegyso that com­pa­nies and cri­ti­cal infras­truc­tures can host their data in Switz­er­land and do not have to rely on hubs out­side Switz­er­land. In some cases, Switz­er­land will not be able to imple­ment this on its own, which is why any coope­ra­ti­on with for­eign play­ers must be sub­ject to Swiss law or inter­na­tio­nal agree­ments that Switz­er­land has concluded.

Thanks to the use of AI Cyber­at­tacks tech­ni­cal­ly incre­a­sing­ly sophi­sti­ca­ted. This poses a serious risk to Swiss com­pa­nies and cri­ti­cal infras­truc­tures. To ensu­re cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, we need not only the ser­vices of the tech­no­lo­gy giants, but also a Fle­xi­ble mix of (public and pri­va­te) ser­vices and other struc­turesthat are deve­lo­ped and ope­ra­ted local­ly. The­re is still a lot to do in this regard.

The broad use of AI can also invol­ve the pro­ce­s­sing of huge amounts of per­so­nal and con­fi­den­ti­al data (from the heal­th­ca­re sec­tor, admi­ni­stra­ti­on, poli­ti­cal insti­tu­ti­ons). With a sove­reign digi­tal infras­truc­tu­re, the Pro­tec­tion of this sen­si­ti­ve data streng­the­nedwhich is cru­cial for the respect of all our pri­va­cy, the pre­ser­va­ti­on of our fun­da­men­tal free­doms and the inde­pen­dence of Switzerland.

This is a cru­cial stra­te­gic step to ensu­re our secu­ri­ty and sove­reig­n­ty in cyber­space, to pro­mo­te our eco­no­my in the digi­tal trans­for­ma­ti­on and to con­so­li­da­te Switzerland’s role as a trust­wor­t­hy part­ner in the field of digi­ta­lizati­on at an inter­na­tio­nal level. A legal defi­ni­ti­on of sove­reig­n­ty in cyber­space is also necessary.