Beyond data residency: ensuring long-term accessibility in BIM and GIS
True data sovereignty needs open definitions.
The current push for “Digital Sovereignty” is a necessary wake-up call for the AEC and Geospatial industries. National governments and major asset owners are increasingly mandating that project data reside on home soil, managed by local companies. It is a natural response to a world of shifting geopolitical alliances and the dominance of a few global tech giants.
But there is a fatal limitation in the current strategy. Many organisations are focusing on data location while completely ignoring data accessibility.
If your project data sits on a server you own, in a building you lock, but is wrapped in a file format that requires a “permission slip” (a subscription license) from a foreign corporation to read, you do not have sovereignty. You have fysical access to your data, but your data is not accessible. An explanation:
The illusion of ownership
In the BIM and Geospatial business, we deal with high-value intellectual property. We create digital twins of national infrastructure, hospitals, and power plants. Currently, much of this intelligence is locked inside proprietary containers. BIM Formats like Autodesk’s .rvt, Graphisoft’s .pla, Bentley’s .dgn, and Geospatial Formats like Esri’s .gdb all make sense. These formats are different and offer a competitive distinction in features and functionalities. Just to be clear, we are not saying proprietary formats are bad; they exist for a good reason.
But when you use proprietary formats as your primary archive, you aren’t just buying a tool; you are entering a lifelong dependency.
The business implications of “data blindness”
Losing access to your data, or even just having it “throttled” by rising licensing costs, has devastating commercial consequences:
Explosive migration costs: research shows that data migration projects from proprietary systems often exceed budgets by an average of 30% and schedules by over 40%. If you are forced to move your data because of a vendor dispute, the “exit fee” in labor alone is astronomical.
Operational paralysis: For facility managers, the BIM data is the “operating system” of the building. For a city planner, the GIS is the “operating system” of the municipality (for example). If a licensing audit or a change in corporate policy cuts off access to the proprietary files, the ability to maintain equipment or manage land is compromised instantly.
The “version tax”: Proprietary formats are often (not always) not backward or forward compatible. To open a file from a few years ago, you are often forced to maintain a current, expensive subscription. This is a perpetual tax on your own history. In principle it is weird you have to pay a 3rd party to access your data, with your copyright and your IP, hosted on your own machine.
The integration wall: When a user uses one proprietary format, the structural engineer another, and the GIS department a third, the “translation” process could lead to data degradation. This “friction” costs the global construction industry billions in coordination efforts every year.
True sovereignty requires open definitions
True sovereignty requires a two-pronged approach. Yes, keep the servers local. But more importantly, mandate the definitions. We must stop asking “Where is our data?” and start asking “Who owns the keys to unlock your data formats?”
This is where the work of organisations like buildingSMART and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) becomes a business imperative rather than a “technical nice-to-have.”
The Bottom Line
If you cannot open, read, and edit your BIM or GIS data without a specific company’s permission, that data is a liability, not an asset. True digital sovereignty isn’t just about fences and firewalls; it’s about interoperability. Of course you can use proprietary files. They are needed and useful. Just don’t make your long-term business dependent on them. By mandating openBIM and Open GIS formats in every contract, we stop renting our own intelligence and start owning it.
Storing data is easy; owning its future is hard. If you don’t mandate open formats, someone else holds the keys to your assets.
This really nails the hidden trap in data sovereignty. The distinction between data location and format accessibility is something most orgs miss completely. I worked on a municipal project where we had local servers but coudn't migrate legacy GIS data without paying for old licenses, it was absurd. The version tax point especially hits hard becuase it turns your own IP into a recurring expense.