In the last two decades, Big Tech companies have become an increasingly central component of American global power, and geopolitical players in their own right. These technology giants have not only reshaped industries and consumer behaviour worldwide but also serve as conduits for the exertion of American soft and economic power on the global stage.

From exporting American media and culture through social media and streaming platforms to controlling the majority of the physical hardware on which the modern internet runs, Big Tech has played a critical role in consolidating American hegemony in the internet age. Not only does the control and use of this infrastructure to export American values and politics constitute its own form of passive soft power, but Big Tech companies are increasingly seen by American strategists as key power resources to winning a future conflict with China.

As Professor Audrey Kurth Kronin, Director of the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology, put it: “American interests are not separate from those of its tech giants, just as the interests of the tech giants are not separate from those of the United States,” calling on the US Government to help these companies realise their role as geopolitical players and arms of American power.

Read more by Mark McGeoghegan

It’s easy to see how this view has emerged. Big Tech, by which I mean companies like Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple, is utterly dominant across all of the primary platforms and devices we use to access information, engage in e-commerce, and communicate online.

Google controls about 90% of the global search engine market. The information landscape across the world is decisively shaped by its search algorithms and advertising........

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