Infrastructure. Intelligence. Power. Governance.

Governing the
Digital Backbone

How the Digital Backbone Is Reshaping Strategy, Risk, and Power.

A strategic playbook for executives, boards, and senior managers navigating cloud, AI, cybersecurity, and digital sovereignty in the new industrial economy.

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Architecture defines economics. Control over infrastructure defines power.

Cover of Governing the Digital Backbone by Gianni Ferranti

The Book

A new governance challenge for the digital economy

Every industrial revolution has produced new forms of governance. Railways, electricity grids, and global financial markets each forced societies to rethink oversight, accountability, and strategic control. The digital revolution is now entering the same phase.

Governing the Digital Backbone argues that the next frontier of digital transformation is not technological innovation alone — it is the governance of the systems that underpin the digital economy. Cloud, compute, data, AI, and connectivity have ceased to be supporting functions. They have become the operating backbone of every modern enterprise, and increasingly of the economy itself.

Written for boards, CEOs, and senior managers, the book turns technology into a topic of strategic capital allocation — and gives decision-makers the frameworks to govern it with the same seriousness they apply to finance, risk, and people.

Inside the book

Four parts, one argument: digital infrastructure is strategic capital, and governing it is now a board-level responsibility.

01

Technology as Strategic Capital

Why digital investments must be governed at the highest levels of the organisation. New fiduciary duties for boards as EU regulation — AI Act, NIS2, DORA, Data Act — moves accountability from CIOs to governing bodies.

02

The Infrastructure of the Digital Economy

Cloud sovereignty, compute scarcity, hyperscalers, and the new economics of connectivity. The emerging geopolitical zoning of digital infrastructure — and Europe's federated answer through GAIA-X and SEAL.

03

The Operating Model in the Digital Era

Resilience, cybersecurity, complexity management, and the changing nature of outsourcing. How AI is reshaping operations, sourcing, and the structure of the modern enterprise.

04

Ethics, Limits, and Power

The impact of AI on labour, its role in conflict and cybersecurity, and the question that defines the next decade: not what technology can do, but what societies are willing to allow it to do.

The Author

Gianni Ferranti

Portrait of Gianni Ferranti

An international executive with over thirty years of experience at the intersection of technology, telecommunications, and digital transformation.

Gianni Ferranti has held senior leadership roles at leading technology companies and global consulting firms, advising executives and boards on AI, cybersecurity, and large-scale digital infrastructure. He holds a degree in Engineering and a Master's degree in Geopolitics and Global Security.

Governing the Digital Backbone is his first book — bringing together three decades of experience at the intersection of technology, strategy, and governance.

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Watch

Videos & messages from the author

Short films, keynotes, and direct messages from Gianni Ferranti — exploring the themes at the heart of the book. 3 featured below · 9 in total →

Author message

A message from the Author

Gianni Ferranti reflects on why he wrote this book and what it sets out to explore.

Overview

Governing the Digital Backbone

The book in one video: from technology as a tool to a strategic infrastructure.

Briefing

The Digital Literacy Gap

Why boards must govern technology like financial capital — and the questions they're not yet asking.
Watch all 9 videos

Listen

Podcast & readings

Listen to the author in conversation, and to selected readings from the book — available now on Spotify.

Featured episode · Spotify

Governing the Digital Backbone — the podcast

How AI, cloud, connectivity, cybersecurity, and digital infrastructure are reshaping strategy, risk, resilience, and power in the digital economy.

Listen on Spotify
All audio & readings

Get the Book

Where to buy

Governing the Digital Backbone is available worldwide — in paperback, hardcover, and digital editions.

Amazon Paperback · Hardcover · Kindle YouCanPrint Print-on-demand IBS / Mondadori Italian retailers Google Books eBook Apple Books eBook Kobo eBook

Also available in bookstores

Governing the Digital Backbone can be ordered through any physical bookstore worldwide. Provide your local bookseller with the title and author name — or quote the ISBN — and they will source a copy for you.

ISBN: 9791224083276

Reader reviews

What readers are saying

A selection of comments and reviews from readers of Governing the Digital Backbone.

This was a strong and insightful read. The book advances two fundamental theses, both well documented.

  1. The so-called digital backbone — composed of cloud, connectivity, AI, and cyber-defense — has evolved from an enterprise support function into a strategic enterprise capability.
  2. Given its long-term impact on competitiveness, resilience, and risk exposure, technology investment must be governed at board level.

Several elements particularly caught my attention:

  • Technology as strategic capital
  • The interplay of exponential innovation cycles and regulation
  • The useful concept of an Enterprise Compute Balance Sheet
  • The shift from cyber-defense to cyber resilience
  • The intriguing AI-shoring paradigm

In my view, the book works well as quick reference material for key trends affecting enterprise technology evolution, as a reflection companion for reasoning through complex questions, and as a collection of hands-on tools to manage choices and risks.

While a must-read for board members, the book is highly relevant to a wide range of business, technology and institutional functions.

I recommend.

Giovanni

Strategy Consultant

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