#41 - April 2, 2026 - Full-Stack Sovereignty: Why Universities are Becoming Defense Supply Chains

As borderless open science becomes a relic of the past, global research institutions are increasingly finding themselves on the active front lines of geopolitical defense and transnational harassment. To counter threats ranging from warrantless data extraction in Hong Kong to state-sponsored campus espionage, allied nations like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are aggressively pivoting their academic funding towards sovereign, dual-use technologies such as AI drone mapping and secure quantum computing. This episode explores how universities are rapidly transforming from collaborative civilian sectors into highly secure national defense supply chains and, in some conflict zones, potential military targets.