Matteo Nebbiai

In today’s interconnected world, technological networks can be weaponized by countries that control their most critical nodes—such as social media platforms or semiconductor manufacturers. This project investigates which digital networks are likely to become the next sources of vulnerability for the EU. The research proceeds in three stages: first, qualitative sources (academic and policy papers) are scraped to identify networks that are gaining strategic relevance; second, public data is used to quantitatively model these networks; and third, social network analysis is applied to determine which of them could be weaponized against the EU. The project has two main outputs. First, it develops a methodology to quantitatively assess the economic and technological interdependencies among countries within specific critical networks. Second, it applies this methodology to map the EU’s position within the networks underpinning digital technologies, identifying where the EU is in a strong or weak position and providing insights to inform EU industrial policy and trade strategy.