The global fight for internet infrastructure control has heated up, driven by more international competition, increasing cyber attacks and instances of economic espionage. Following the Russia-Ukraine war and escalating US-China tensions, countries are now rushing to protect data flows and vulnerable critical infrastructure for the coming years. Rising concerns about dependence on foreign-controlled hosting, internet protocols (IPs) and peering are also emerging.
Furthermore, the increasing cost of internet connectivity, driven by the near depletion of IPv4 addresses, as well as the growing frequency of routing attacks such as Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) hijacks, have also heightened the need for countries in the European Union (EU) to focus on digital sovereignty. After years of outsourcing and bureaucracy, many are still in the draft strategy stage.
However, through a series of coordinated and innovative strategies – including IPv6 deployment, local control of IP space, private sector alignment and peering networks – Lithuania has been taking a highly proactive approach to future-proofing its internet infrastructure, improving digital sovereignty and national resilience.
How Lithuania is building internet infrastructure resilience
Lithuania’s post-Soviet past has played a significant role in shaping its bid for digital autonomy, which relies on viewing internet infrastructure as a state asset. A tech-first governance model combines public-private partnerships, infrastructure policy and national security.
Back in the early 2000s, the country was already investing significantly in nationwide digital identity, e-government services and secure infrastructure for public data. Now it is doubling down on IPv6 deployment at scale as part of a strategy to future-proof its internet infrastructure. And the country is actively trying to encourage full IPv6 adoption, when IPv6 adoption across Europe has been relatively slower so far.
This shift is likely to help decrease dependence on almost depleted IPv4 addresses, while securing long-term address availability. IPv6 networks are also more efficiently structured, with better redundancy and shorter routing paths, strengthening resistance to disruptions and failures.
“With globally unique addresses, IPv6 restores end-to-end connectivity, enabling more transparent communication and better performance. This eliminates the need for current complex workarounds like NAT due to IPv4 address limitations,” says Martin Butler, professor of digital transformation at Vlerick Business School. “This gives nations more control over their network infrastructure and supports the scale needed for future digital services.”
Leasing out dormant IP addresses
Lithuania is taking strategic control of its IP address space by leasing out dormant IP addresses through private sector companies like IPXO. The company claims to have the world’s largest IPv4 leasing market, with more than 300 million leasable IPs across all regional internet registries (RIRs).
IPXO’s co-founder, Vincentas Grinius, believes that out of 4.3 billion IP addresses, 25% are not visible on the internet at all, with a considerable portion of the remainder being badly managed.
With globally unique addresses, IPv6 restores end-to-end connectivity, enabling more transparent communication and better performance Martin Butler, Vlerick Business School
“It’s not about the shortage, it’s about how efficiently that resource is utilised. A lot of enterprises have a legacy space that some of them forgot about. Some of them have legacy networks where they have a different system and they are locked within those,” he says.
“Our aim is to step into a deeper understanding of how we can defragment their networks and give them that single source of truth. It’s to help enterprises optimise their networks and remove the hurdle of multiple tools,” adds Grinius.
Butler emphasises that as countries strive to achieve greater digital sovereignty, controlling data flows and IP address space has become vital.
“Local routing policies enable governments and ISPs [internet service providers] to align their network operations with domestic laws, enhance visibility in critical sectors, and reduce dependency on foreign infrastructure. These actions strengthen resilience and help mitigate security risks such as route hijacking,” he says.
Not only can this generate additional revenue, but it could also reduce the need to lease address space from foreign companies, while curbing black market leasing and IP hijacking.
Another step is building up routing and peering infrastructure by enhancing BGP route filtering, growing internet exchange points and supporting domestic peering. This helps decrease latency, keep traffic local and control the risks of foreign routing dependency, which is vital for both national security and performance.
Simultaneously, Lithuania is developing top-tier response infrastructure through sector-specific cyber protocols and its National Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-LT), in partnership with NRD Cyber Security. This allows the country to export CERT design, cyber security frameworks and routing strategies to other countries, further strengthening its cyber resilience leadership.
Apart from IPXO and NRD Cyber Security, the Lithuanian government consistently funds, supports and partners with several other private sector firms and business incubators, such as Hostinger, Tesonet, Telesoftas and Kaunas Tech Park.
By designing and operating domestic core stack services, these companies can significantly decrease the need for global hyperscalers, while being aligned with sovereign goals.
According to Eiviltas Paraščiakas, head of communications at Hostinger, one of the company’s main advantages over hyperscalers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud is speed. He said this unlocks lots of options, such as adapting to technology trends, delivering minimum viable products and experimenting with products.
He believes competitors would struggle to launch a product in a few weeks, as Hostinger did with its Horizons AI app platform, which simplifies web application development.
Kaunas Tech Park plays a key role in seeding and supporting Lithuania’s early-stage tech startups and scaleups. These work across cyber security, cloud-native and hosting technologies, the internet of things (IoT) and edge networking, among other areas. Through this collaborative system, Lithuania can scale up its digital infrastructure much faster than many of its EU peers.
What Europe could learn from Lithuania
One of the key takeaways from Lithuania’s internet infrastructure approach is that true sovereign digital resilience comes from first mastering control of the invisible but essential building blocks. Lithuania treats routing infrastructure, IP space, Domain Name System (DNS) and hosting as national and strategic assets, not just technical private sector tools. As such, the long-term resilience of these assets can be baked into the national digital agenda and routinely monitored and encouraged by the Ministry of the Economy and Innovation.
One of the key takeaways from Lithuania’s internet infrastructure approach is that true sovereign digital resilience comes from first mastering control of the invisible but essential building blocks
In contrast, several EU countries still outsource core infrastructure to foreign telecoms operators or hyperscalers. While their digital agendas are full of intention, they lag in implementation. Another lesson is to utilise dormant IP assets for leasing revenue, which can then be used for public infrastructure, research and development, and scientific ventures. This effectively reduces digital waste and decreases the internet’s carbon footprint.
Lithuania also demonstrates the benefits of fostering public-private tech partnerships with companies like IPXO, Tesonet, Hostinger and NRD Cyber Security. These firms highlight the multifold benefits of policy support, building products that strengthen national autonomy, like a global IP leasing marketplace, encrypted access and domestic hosting. By doing the same, the UK and EU could significantly reduce reliance on Chinese or US firms and enhance domestic internet infrastructure capabilities.
Lithuania’s strategy of exporting cyber resilience through sovereign infrastructure models could help other EU members and the UK develop themselves as global digital leaders as well. The country demonstrates the benefits of agility during initial-stage implementation of new internet infrastructure policies, through rapid deployment of IPv6 at scale, integrating national cyber architecture and changing registry policies. In addition, this could allow it to be much better equipped to deal with fast-evolving digital threats, unlike the UK, which is still bogged down by fragmented policies and red tape.
The challenges ahead
Yet even though Lithuania is making significant strides in internet infrastructure resilience, some hurdles remain. Butler points out that local IP space control and sovereign routing policies have their drawbacks: “Excessive centralisation or opaque filtering can undermine the internet’s open, distributed nature. Mandating that traffic stay within borders may reduce efficiency, increase latency and risk fragmentation outcomes that weaken rather than strengthen digital infrastructure.”
Yet despite impressive roll-out, Lithuanian IPv6 adoption across enterprise networks, consumer ISPs and regional governments is still somewhat patchy. This is mainly because several services and devices still depend heavily on IPv4.
Awareness of the benefits of IP address leasing is also slow, with Grinius noting: “It took us a lot of effort to educate the market that leasing is good and safe, if you have a safe environment to do that. A lot of the companies or government institutions, non-governmental organisations, have that old thinking, where you can’t do anything with the IP addresses within the third-party networks. We tried to change that because technologies are advancing, things are introduced faster and faster.”
With the country mainly relying on a few major firms, such as IPXO and Hostinger, for internet infrastructure, there is also a systemic risk in case of strategy changes or consolidation. A lack of domestic hyperscalers also means that some critical workloads still depend on foreign infrastructure, which can slow full digital sovereignty.
Similarly, Lithuania’s talent pool is currently seeing a high amount of brain drain to countries including the UK, Germany and the US, which often offer better salaries. This can have far-reaching impacts on sovereign infrastructure projects.
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Software Updates
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Every NHS trust in England needs an electronic patient record (EPR) system in place by March 2026, as part of a government push to digitise the healthcare system.
In many ways, this is long overdue: some trusts have still been using pen-and-paper record-keeping until very recently.
EPRs have the potential to massively improve efficiency in the NHS. If working properly, they allow doctors to keep all of their records in one place, speed up prescribing and diagnostics, and make it easier for patients to access their own health information.
But these roll-outs have not been without problems. Concerns have been raised about how far these benefits can actually be realised. Some NHS trusts have experienced issues with integrating new systems and training staff on how to use them.
In the extreme, there have been reports of EPRs creating new problems for hospitals, with evidence suggesting these systems may have contributed to serious harm and even deaths among patients.
NHS trusts have been put in charge of procuring their own EPRs, meaning there are numerous different technology companies involved. Some providers of these systems are large US firms. This includes Oracle Health, provided by the Larry Ellison-led tech giant, and Epic, a tech firm based in Wisconsin.
Contracts can run into nine figures: Guy’s and St Thomas’, a trust in South London, launched a £450m system from Epic in late 2023. Some parts of the NHS have been using them for more than a decade, but a handful are still set to miss the government’s March deadline.
Data access
Pritesh Mistry is a fellow at the King’s Fund, where he researches the impact of digital transformation in the NHS. He says it has had “both positive and negative impacts”.
“In the last few years, we’ve seen doubling down on the focus around digital records,” says Mistry. These are now in place in more than 90% of all trusts, and every GP practice.
“That means we’ve now got [new] data that’s within the healthcare system, which allows us to do other things, like treat populations, and understand and track patient safety,” he says.
Despite this, he cautions some patients are still struggling to get hold of their own data.
“We’ve got a lot of data that’s in silos,” says Mistry. “It doesn’t flow. That’s the biggest challenge: making the data accessible and usable for patients and healthcare professionals to be able to provide care in a way that is joined up and meets with modern expectations.”
He says complaints with new technology haven’t just come from patients.
“We need to recognise that staff are really frustrated,” says Mistry. “Software often crashes. Computers are really slow, and technology adds to their workload, instead of simplifying things.” He caveats that some parts of the NHS are better than others on this.
Safeguarding patient data
Mistry adds that there are safeguards in place to ensure patient data isn’t ending up where it shouldn’t be – such as through data protection rules and procurement requirements.
However, he warns that “we need to make sure we move with the times in terms of what technology is available”. Mistry is more concerned about medical staff inadvertently putting personal information into a large language model, for instance.
“Digital exclusion remains a barrier as well,” he says, adding that these systems have the potential to widen inequalities in healthcare. Those less able to use new technology might struggle to access their records.
“People tend to assume it’s old people [who are most impacted], but that isn’t necessarily true,” says Mistry, instead highlighting the impact of poverty and deprivation, with some still unable to afford internet access.
He argues the NHS should be working to meet people where they are, and provide more “tailored” technology services.
Patient safety
Nick Woodier is a doctor and investigator at the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB), which looks into issues with healthcare in the UK. He sees problems arising from how EPRs are deployed by trusts, especially when medical staff overestimate their capabilities.
He uses the example of prescribing medicines: “There’s an assumption that these electronic prescribing systems will stop you [from] doing something catastrophic.”
But this isn’t always the case. In one investigation, the HSSIB found a child had been prescribed nearly 10 times the recommended dose of an anti-coagulant medication, with doctors having assumed the EPR would flag an issue. The child ended up with a bleed on their brain.
Woodier also worries hospitals are not always picking up on when these systems are at fault.
“We will often see where incidents have happened and the contribution of the electronic system has not been recognised,” he says.
Woodier sees this as coming from a culture which prefers to put the blame for safety failures on individuals.
A 2024 investigation by the BBC found there were more than 126 instances of serious harm registered by NHS trusts across 31 trusts, including three deaths related to EPR problems.
The HSSIB has also encountered problems from patients being unable to access their digital records.
“We’ve seen in general practice, for example, some patients telling us that they’ve gone without care – because in their mind, they thought the only way they could access their GP was to fill in an electronic form,” says Woodier.
A spokesperson for NHS England says EPRs are “already having a significant impact on improving safety and care for patients”, for instance, by helping to identify conditions such as sepsis, and preventing medication errors.
“They have replaced outdated and often less-safe paper-based systems, and we are working closely with NHS trusts to ensure they are implemented safely alongside other systems with appropriate training – and are used to the highest quality and safety standards,” the spokesperson adds.
Interoperability
The EPR roll-out has also been criticised for problems with “interoperability” – the ability of different programs and modes of data collection to converse with each other. The patchwork of different systems used by different trusts means data stored in one system might not be useful for a system used by a different part of the NHS.
Woodier says this often happens in communications between hospitals and GP surgeries. This can involve someone manually inputting information from one system to another, which can create risks when data is not being transferred properly, or is missed completely.
“When you introduce a manual operation, that risk increases,” he warns. “The odds are that at some point, somebody won’t do the right thing, because that’s the reality of being human.”
Alex Lawrence, a fellow at the Health Foundation, describes interoperability as a “significant challenge”, which the NHS and technology companies have been “grappling with for a really long time”.
“Some trusts have found it much harder to access their own EPR data than they anticipated, because of where that data is stored,” she adds, referring to research the organisation carried out in 2024.
“If it’s taking you days to pull the data that you need, then it’s already not going to be useful for a lot of the purposes that you might want it for.”
“The government is making information standards mandatory for EPR providers, as well as trusts, with the Secretary of State potentially having more powers to enforce those standards,” she says.
The longer term
Going forward, Lawrence would like to see a system involving “patients being empowered with access to their own data, and as far as appropriate, clinicians being able to see all of the history that they need for their patients”.
In an ideal system, different parts of the healthcare system would be able to “share a patient’s data where necessary and appropriate, in an easy and timely way”.
She says they have the “potential to offer enormous value”, but much of their functionality is going unused. “What our qualitative research suggested was that a lot of these systems are still functioning as digital notebooks,” says Lawrence.
Matthew Taylor is the head of the NHS Confederation and NHS Providers, membership bodies for healthcare organisations.
“NHS leaders say the gap between trusts on digital maturity is still stark – and it’s shaping how quickly organisations can move to modern EPRs,” he says.
This gap – combined with the organisational complexity of the healthcare system – means interoperability has “long been a thorn in the NHS’s side”.
Taylor adds that EPRs are not a “once-and-done” job, and argues they will result in savings in the long term, but that it may take around five years to see the benefits.
“Hospitals are housing a huge amount of paper records, and the cost of storing, retrieving and managing those records can run into millions of pounds each year,” he says.
These systems are part of a larger picture, and one facet of the conversation, around the use of artificial intelligence in the NHS. AI models for areas such as research and diagnostics will require extensive and standardised medical data.
Mistry warns these AI tools operate on the basis of “garbage in, garbage out”.
“There is a risk that we roll out AI tools without the underpinning data quality it needs,” he says, adding that this could exacerbate inequalities or biases from using AI.
As Woodier puts it: “We’ve got organisations who are still using archaic computers, have got infrastructure that’s not working, are still on old web systems, or have EPRs that don’t talk to each other. A few [trusts] don’t have EPRs.
“So, actually, are we trying to run before we’ve even managed to walk?”
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