Industrial sovereignty has returned to the center of political agendas, with its relocations, investment plans, sectoral strategies, targeted subsidies. Everywhere, States are seeking to regain control of their productive capacities. But behind the announcements of new factories and infrastructures, a blind spot persists, and Natan Linder, founder and CEO of Tulip Interfaceshighlighted during his speech in Davos yesterday, where he recalled that industrial sovereignty is no longer played out only in steel, concrete or machines, but in data.
A sovereignty thought without its invisible infrastructure
Industrial policies continue to follow proven patterns: produce more locally, secure supply chains, finance industrial capacities deemed strategic. If this logic is not erroneous, it is incomplete and does not sufficiently capture the innovations which are profoundly transforming contemporary industry.
Because in today’s industry, the capacity to produce depends more and more on the capacity to capture, structure, share and exploit data from the field, as recalled by Bruno Bouygues, CEO of GYS. Production, quality, maintenance, traceability, compliance or security data: without this informational layer, industrial chains become not only rigid, but vulnerable to shocks.
Natan Linder puts it this way: “We must consider each employee as a knowledge worker”. He immediately adds that the very term “knowledge worker” is problematic, because it artificially draws a line between those who think and those who do. In modern industry, this boundary no longer has operational relevance.
Data as a condition for continuous transformation
Today’s factory must be equipped with systems that can guide action, document decisions and continuously improve processes. Its modernization is not limited to its automation.
“The challenge is to transform business expertise into systems that allow organizations to continuously transform,” he explains. This transformation is based on a profound hybridization between the physical world and the digital world. Gestures, material constraints, security and the variability of production environments must interact in real time with digital systems capable of learning, anticipating and reconfiguring themselves.
Without sovereignty over these data flows, no lasting industrial sovereignty is possible. Factories can be localized, but decisions remain dependent on software infrastructures, standards, platforms and regulatory frameworks that are often extraterritorial.
Europe facing its own paradox
Europe has a strong industrial tradition, a dense engineering fabric and a diversified productive base. But it is struggling to quickly carry out large-scale industrial reconfigurations.
“Europe is expensive, complicated, fragmented,” observes Natan Linder. This fragmentation is not just due to costs or standards. It is due to the difficulty of circulating industrial data between sites, between countries, between public and private actors, in a framework that is both secure and operational.
In a context where value chains are moving and being recomposed, data becomes a factor of speed. However, speed is today a strategic determinant. Another point highlighted during his intervention: despite two major assets, namely central and eastern Europe and the proximity of North Africa, Europe has not yet learned to orchestrate these spaces as an expanded industrial system.
Data sovereignty, far beyond the cloud
Reducing data sovereignty to a question of server location would be a diagnostic error. Industrial sovereignty involves being able to share production data between players, standardize formats and build interoperable architectures, while respecting high security and compliance requirements.
In industry, this data is not abstract, it describes gestures, incidents, non-conformities, choices made under constraint, and if this data remains locked in silos, industrial AI cannot scale up.
“The question is how quickly public policy can evolve to make this possible,” emphasizes Natan Linder, explicitly linking data sovereignty and industrial execution capacity.
Defense, industry and data, a link made explicit
This link appears even more clearly when he talks about the defense and aeronautics sectors. In these areas, the industrial chain is inseparable from national security. The ability to produce quickly, maintain equipment and adapt systems depends directly on the circulation and control of industrial data.
Without clear data governance, without the ability to exploit it locally and without industrial ecosystems capable of collaborating on common information bases, sovereignty remains theoretical. Great Britain recently initiated a change in doctrine, aiming to make regulation no longer just a control framework, but a lever for industrial projection.
The Minister responsible for the digital economy, Liz Lloydreminded on this occasion: “British innovators should not be held back by unnecessary bureaucracy. We have world-class companies in robotics and defense technology, but regulation has not kept pace with their innovations. »
According to her, this situation warrants an update to the existing framework: “We are updating the rules so that they are adapted to modern technologies, removing the obstacles that prevent these companies from growing and competing on a global scale. »
A shift likely to encourage certain Member States of the European Union to go beyond the current approach, where regulation serves as an identity marker, and to re-examine its purposes and its economic effects.
Founded by Natan LinderTulip is developing an industrial software platform designed to connect the field (operators, production lines, equipment) to the company’s digital systems. Its approach is based on modular applications (composable apps) deployable locally in factories, allowing production, quality, maintenance or compliance data to be captured, structured and used in real time.
Tulip has just risen one hundred and twenty million dollars in series D, valuing the company at $1.3 billionin a round led by Mitsubishi Electric, accompanied by a strategic partnership. The company also strengthened its R&D hub in Israel after acquiring startup Akooda, which specializes in analyzing workflows and organizational data. Present on more than 1,000 industrial sites in 45 countriesTulip now equips tens of thousands of field operators.
