🤖 Manifesto: Building Sovereign AI for Cambodia

Artificial intelligence is reshaping global power dynamics. Every nation must master this technological revolution on its own terms. Why does Cambodia—like every country—need sovereign AI? Because it's about digital sovereignty, cultural identity preservation, economic development, and upholding our ethical values. Without action, major powers will continue to dominate AI, creating new economic and cultural dependencies for others. Conversely, forging our own path in AI ensures a future where technology respects our local realities and primarily serves the common good of our people.

🛡️ Digital Sovereignty: A Strategic Imperative

Control over data and technology has become a pillar of national independence. Developing sovereign AI means maintaining control over our infrastructure and information without depending on foreign powers. Unlike "imported" AI models subject to extraterritorial laws (such as the U.S. Cloud Act allowing data access by American authorities), national AI guarantees that our sensitive data remains protected by our own regulations.

For Cambodia, mastering our AI means mastering our digital destiny—without fearing that an external decision could overnight deprive us of essential services or compromise our data confidentiality. This technological sovereignty also strengthens national security by reducing risks related to potential backdoors or geopolitical pressures, ensuring that the AI powering our critical systems remains under our control.

🌍 Culture and Language: AI Rooted in Cambodia

No technology should erase a people's soul. Current generalist AIs, trained primarily on Western or foreign data, largely ignore Khmer reality. The Khmer language, spoken by more than 16 million people, remains vastly underrepresented in major language model training corpora.

The resulting biases are real: these AIs often convey a Western-centric worldview that obscures our challenges, histories, and heritage. We clearly see how Western thought currently dominates the AI space, neglecting local knowledge, cultural pluralism, and global equity.

The consequences range from misunderstanding our references (idiomatic expressions, customs, historical figures) to gross contextual errors. Ultimately, our cultural identity risks being distorted by algorithms indifferent to our context.

Imagining a Cambodian AI, trained on our local data, is conversely the opportunity to create systems that understand our customs and traditions, communicate in Khmer with nuance, and integrate our unique perspectives. AI rooted in Cambodian culture would ensure our stories are no longer ignored or distorted by models designed thousands of kilometers away. It would be the digital reflection of our civilization, not the unwitting vector of cultural homogenization.

💰 Local Innovation and Economic Development

Building sovereign AI also means investing in Cambodia's economic future. Why remain merely consumers of foreign solutions when we could become producers? Today, too often, Global South countries provide the data and even labor that train tech giants' AIs, without reaping the profits or added value. This extractive dynamic—where our resources feed intelligences managed elsewhere—must be reversed.

These "Made in Cambodia" innovations will generate skilled jobs for our youth and encourage talent to stay in the country to build future solutions, rather than emigrating. A local AI sector also creates a value chain that benefits our businesses and researchers, instead of enriching only foreign firms.

Ultimately, Cambodia will become a full player in the technological revolution—contributing its own discoveries and products—which will strengthen its position in ASEAN and globally. Investing in sovereign AI means stimulating local innovation, diversifying our economy, and ensuring sustainable growth driven by our citizens' knowledge and creativity.

🤝 Toward Ethical AI Aligned with Our Values

AI isn't just about data and algorithms—it's also a societal choice. Who better than ourselves to decide how we want to use these technologies? By developing AI locally, Cambodia can align it with its own ethical values, social norms, and development priorities.

Rather than enduring models designed according to other moral frameworks, we can integrate our principles from conception:

• Respect for human dignity
• Community solidarity
• Privacy protection
• Buddhist values and traditions

It's now necessary to open AI debate to cultures beyond the West, lest this technology become an instrument of intellectual domination, a modern vector of imperialism imposing uniform thinking.

Khmer ethical AI would offer transparency and accountability guarantees: mechanisms to avoid discriminatory biases against certain population groups and safeguards against uses contrary to the general interest. By favoring an open and transparent approach (notably using open-source solutions when possible), we allow the local community to continuously verify and improve the technology, ensuring trust.

Our goal must be AI serving the common good: contributing to improving education, healthcare, and social justice, while scrupulously respecting our citizens' rights and diversity. In short, our AI must reflect the best of our values, not reproduce flaws or biases from elsewhere.

🌐 Multipolarity: The Technological Future is Plural

Pursuing sovereign AI isn't about isolation—it's joining a global movement for technological multipolarity. In an increasingly connected world, it's healthy for each region to develop its own innovation hubs. The AI revolution shouldn't be limited to Silicon Valley or China: it has everything to gain by blooming in Phnom Penh, Nairobi, São Paulo, and elsewhere.

Each country brings its perspective and talents to the common edifice, resulting in richer, more inclusive technology for all humanity. A multipolar AI world is one where no single entity dictates technological law to others—where standards, norms, and applications are built through dialogue between diverse cultures and visions.

For Cambodia, developing sovereign AI allows us to sit at the table of innovative nations as contributors, not just consumers. We can collaborate as equals with other countries on international projects, share our advances, learn from neighbors' experiences, while maintaining our decision-making freedom.

This diversity of AI hubs insures against hegemony and provides global balance: it ensures technology reflects the plurality of each people's needs and dreams, rather than imposing a single model. By embracing this multipolar vision, Cambodia affirms its will to count in the global digital future, alongside all those who believe in inclusive, shared technological development.

📢 Call to Action: Building Cambodia's AI Together

Sovereign Khmer AI won't be one actor's work—it's a collective project requiring everyone's energy. Cambodia already possesses talents, resources, and vision that must be mobilized to meet this challenge.

To our engineers, researchers, entrepreneurs, public decision-makers, and educators, we issue a call: unite our forces to birth open, ethical Cambodian AI aligned with the common good.

Concretely, this means:

For the Tech Community

• Support local initiatives (research projects, startups, open-source communities)
• Contribute to Khmer language datasets and AI training
• Develop tools and applications for local needs

For Educational Institutions

• Integrate AI into curricula to train the next generation of specialists
• Create bridges between academia, industry, and government
• Establish AI research centers focused on Cambodian contexts

For Government and Public Institutions

• Define a national AI strategy
• Invest in infrastructure (computing centers, local cloud)
• Adopt regulatory frameworks conducive to responsible innovation
• Support AI literacy programs

For Businesses

• Adopt and co-develop local solutions
• Benefit productivity while supporting collective sovereignty
• Partner with local AI startups and researchers

The Vision Forward

This manifesto is a call for general mobilization. It's not about rejecting global AI, but contributing our own perspective as equal partners. Cambodia has always preserved its culture and identity throughout history; it's now time to project them into the digital future.

Together, let's build Khmer AI that reflects our values and aspirations. AI that speaks our language, understands our culture, and responds to our needs. AI we'll be proud of because it was conceived by Cambodians for Cambodians.

Tomorrow's world will comprise multiple intelligences, collaborating without crushing each other. Let's ensure ours occupies the place it deserves. This is how we'll strengthen not only Cambodia's digital sovereignty but also the dynamism of a truly multipolar technological world, where every nation, including ours, contributes to everyone's progress.

Together, let's make sovereign AI for Cambodia a reality! 🚀

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This manifesto represents our vision for Cambodia's technological future. Join the conversation and help build the AI ecosystem our nation deserves. Contact us to learn how you can contribute to this historic endeavor.