For years, digital identity has relied on an assumption so foundational we barely questioned it: the Internet is global, and interoperability is achievable everywhere. That premise is no longer guaranteed. Geopolitics, supply-chain disruptions, demographic pressures, and rising assertions of digital sovereignty are fracturing the Internet in ways that directly affect identity architectures.

For identity teams, this is a fundamental shift to their operations. Fragmentation influences everything from how federations work across regions to how credential formats are trusted to how enterprises plan for long-term resilience. The question is not whether fragmentation will reshape our systems, but how we prepare for it.

This session draws from recent research on the end of the “global” Internet to examine:

How technology supply-chain chokepoints limit the scalability of AI-driven and identity-dependent infrastructure
Where trade disputes and sovereignty mandates introduce pressure on standards—and what happens when protocols meet politics
How demographic trends influence regional priorities for identity, privacy, and governance

Rather than forecasting doom, I'm focusing on adaptation. What does resilience look like when regional identity stacks gather momentum? How should enterprises evolve their trust models? Where can standards bodies act to preserve interoperability without ignoring political realities? And how can European and North American stakeholders jointly prepare for cross-border identity systems that must function in a fragmented world?