一句话：提出把数字主权作为一等架构属性的参考架构，整合自主身份、区块链可信审计、主权数据治理与受控生成式 AI。
论文指出，非主权云基础设施的垄断、生成式 AI 的快速普及以及日益严格的监管要求，使数字主权成为现代软件密集型系统的核心关切；然而既有工作多把治理、合规与安全割裂处理，难以在架构层面落实主权。作者主张主权应当是系统的一等架构属性而非单纯的监管目标，并提出一个「主权参考架构」，将自主主权身份（SSI）、基于区块链的信任与可审计性、主权数据治理，以及在显式架构控制下部署的生成式 AI 集成起来。该架构特别刻画了生成式 AI 的双重角色：既可能成为治理风险来源，也能在受到恰当约束时支撑合规、问责与持续保证。通过把主权确立为一种架构质量属性，该工作连接了监管意图与具体系统设计，为构建可审计、可演化、具备司法辖区感知能力的 AI 赋能系统提供了一致性基础。
Digital sovereignty has emerged as a central concern for modern software-intensive systems, driven by the dominance of non-sovereign cloud infrastructures, the rapid adoption of Generative AI, and increasingly stringent regulatory requirements. While existing initiatives address governance, compliance, and security in isolation, they provide limited guidance on how sovereignty can be operationalized at the architectural level. In this paper, we argue that sovereignty must be treated as a first-class architectural property rather than a purely regulatory objective. We introduce a Sovereign Reference Architecture that integrates self-sovereign identity, blockchain-based trust and auditability, sovereign data governance, and Generative AI deployed under explicit architectural control. The architecture explicitly captures the dual role of Generative AI as both a source of governance risk and an enabler of compliance, accountability, and continuous assurance when properly constrained. By framing sovereignty as an architectural quality attribute, our work bridges regulatory intent and concrete system design, offering a coherent foundation for building auditable, evolvable, and jurisdiction-aware AI-enabled systems. The proposed reference architecture provides a principled starting point for future research and practice at the intersection of software architecture, Generative AI, and digital sovereignty.
@inproceedings{paperbot11682,
title = {Sovereign-by-Design: A Reference Architecture for AI and Blockchain Enabled Systems},
author = {Matteo Esposito and Lodovica Marchesi and Roberto Tonelli and Valentina Lenarduzzi},
booktitle = {ICSE},
year = {2026},
doi = {10.1145/3774748.3795874}
}