Governing AI at the Edge: Risk, Ethics, and Compliance in Global Data Center Infrastructure
Ethics-driven governance of AI-enabled global data center infrastructure is pivotal for protecting security and privacy interests across borders. A multilayered compliance architecture—including risk assessment methodologies, technical mechanisms, established roles, and a set of policy instruments—supports ethical risk and sovereign compliance across the data center ecosystem. Ethical risk management comprises privacy-preserving data flows, lifecycle security, and AI governance. Because ethical risk spans the global ecosystem, fostering collaboration and commonality builds trust and reduces burden while buttressing legitimacy. Thus, private and public interests align. Sovereign AI governance is an essential enabler of the regionally sovereign world of such infrastructure. AI is reshaping the global digital landscape, including the infrastructure of its cloud and edge components. At the same time, the reliance on such AI-systems and the attendant cross-border exchange of data are raising concerns—notably, for security, privacy, democracy, and human rights. Addressing these ethical issues is a pressing requirement. However, the prevailing compliance frameworks for cross-border data flows and AI systems provide neither the tools nor the appropriate level of granularity for Ethical Risk Management in this context. A distinctive multilayered Compliance Architecture is thus put forward that is adapted specifically to the Ethical Risks associated with AI-enabled Global Data Center Infrastructure, namely, that of Operational Resilience, Legal Certainty, and the protection of Security, Privacy & Human Rights.