Ambrose is part of an extremely niche group called Merri-bek Tech, which wants to place renewable-powered servers in several community hubs.<\/p>\n
Ambrose says these hubs would be places “where you could go to in an emergency to get some form of digital services that were in communication with other community facilities even during an outage of power and internet”.<\/p>\n
Since forming in 2023, 20 people have signed up to have devices in their houses, but they are yet to convince community hubs, like libraries or neighbourhood houses, to host them.<\/p>\n
And if the power and internet went down today?<\/p>\n
Although it is technically possible to link a network wirelessly that can send small bits of data between each other without being connected to what we think of as the internet, Ambrose says they are yet to realise their plan to use open-source software “designed to run in just one place” to “synchronise across multiple places”.<\/p>\n
In other words, it’s not yet operational.<\/p>\n
It might be a (raspberry) pie in the sky plan, but it’s part of a global movement striving to create resilient, environmentally friendly grassroots alternatives to “big tech” at a time when both individuals and nations are questioning the stranglehold of a few companies on the digital systems we rely on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/6012a5e9a605b8cc6d70ab7283b3c893.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Mr Ambrose wants the Raspberry Pi computer to become a vital piece of infrastructure. (ABC News: Rhiannon Stevens)<\/p>\n
Breaking up with US tech giants<\/p>\n
Often labelled “digital sovereignty” the movement bears no relation to the sovereign citizen movement.<\/p>\n
Broadly speaking, digital sovereignty is the idea that you’re in control of your own infrastructure, software and hardware that makes your digital world function.<\/p>\n
For individuals, this might mean having agency over the software you use and where your data is stored.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Often this is motivated by fear of surveillance capitalism \u2014 “a market-driven process where the commodity for sale is your personal data, and the capture and production of this data relies on mass surveillance of the internet” as Donell Holloway writes<\/a> \u2014 or a desire to avoid certain software or companies on ethical grounds (think the Spotify boycott<\/a>).<\/p>\n But increasingly, organisations and governments are seeking to wrest control from US tech companies who have a near monopoly<\/a> over the operating systems, hardware, communication platforms and cloud services that govern our online lives.<\/p>\n “Specifically with the AI age in the last two, three years, everyone is consolidating this idea of being sovereign and independent, either for geopolitical reasons or privacy,” says Ashwin Nagappa, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Digital Media Research Centre in QUT.<\/p>\n Europe is taking the lead in this respect. The European Union has a plan<\/a> to reduce its reliance on cloud infrastructure, software and hardware by non-EU providers and create its own.\u00a0<\/p>\n “We cannot afford to depend on others for the technologies that keep our hospitals running, our energy grids stable and our services secure,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.\u00a0<\/p>\n In other words, says Nagappa, the EU is “breaking up with American tech giants”.\u00a0<\/p>\n The plan is yet to be legislated, and critics argue it wouldn’t be easy or cheap<\/a>.<\/p>\n Nagappa says that compared to the EU, Australia has been slow in developing its own alternative technologies, and we’re similarly reliant on foreign-owned digital infrastructure and vulnerable to the geopolitical tensions that surround it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Jade](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/f1a154d5c40af5d62a5eab9ee7c78038.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n