For decades, many Nordic business leaders operated under a comforting illusion: our companies compete in markets and technologies, while geopolitics happens somewhere far away, handled by diplomats and superpowers. That world is gone.

Today, geopolitics sits directly inside your supply chain, your regulation pipeline, your customer access — and increasingly, your R&D roadmap. Trade routes, energy security, semiconductor access, data sovereignty, AI controls, sanctions regimes, and defense-related dual-use technologies are no longer abstract policy themes. They are board-level business risks and opportunities.

And while some Nordic leaders may still feel that geopolitics lies outside their personal interest or operational responsibility, geopolitics has become intensely interested in them. In their technology, their data, their infrastructure, and their people.

Technology and geopolitics have become inseparable

Every major technology domain we touch — from telecom and batteries to AI, quantum, biotech, and energy — is now a strategic asset in the global contest of power. Some industries, like telecom, have known this for decades. Battery and energy value chains are increasingly shaped by national dependencies, while quantum, space, and biotech startups now operate in an environment where export controls, sanctions, and competing sovereignties determine their market access.

Rising tariffs, expanding trade restrictions, the EU’s push for technological sovereignty, and the resurgence of dual-use technologies make the picture undeniable: the central axis of global competition now cuts directly through technology. 

This is precisely why leading global companies are now appointing chief geopolitical officers. In Finland, some companies have been ahead of the curve. Nokia, for example, has long integrated geopolitical expertise into its top-level decision-making, drawing on figures such as former ambassador Mikko Hautala and earlier Esko Aho, former prime minister of Finland, to help interpret how shifting power dynamics, security policy, and regulation translate into corporate risk and opportunity.

Supply chains: The fragility we can no longer ignore

If the fusion of technology and geopolitics is the first awakening, the second comes from supply chains. Nothing has exposed corporate vulnerability more brutally than the shocks of the last fifteen years. The Japanese earthquake in 2011 forced Nokia to confront how little it understood about the extent of its own supply chain; critical components were sourced from sub-tier suppliers nobody had fully mapped. Covid-19 revealed the fragility of globalised efficiency models when every region faced disruption at the same time. The war in Ukraine then demonstrated how a single factory producing a seemingly insignificant automotive component could halt production lines across Europe.

Again and again, Nordic leaders discovered how deeply their operations depended on places and suppliers they had never considered politically risky. Supply chain security has become geopolitical security. It requires a new level of visibility, data, and foresight — not only knowing direct suppliers but understanding the entire ecosystem behind them. It demands scenario planning for tariffs, export controls, and political crises, and elevates procurement from an operational function to a strategic one. Boards must ask a different kind of question: not merely how much a supplier costs, but what kind of geopolitical exposure that supplier represents.

The dual-use pivot: From taboo to strategic necessity

Another shift has transformed the corporate landscape: the rapid normalisation of defence-related and dual-use technologies. For years, defence was considered a taboo sector in the Nordics. Investors avoided it; startups avoided it; ESG frameworks left little room for products with military relevance. Only a small number of companies in Finland, such as Patria, operated comfortably in this space. Everything changed with the war in Ukraine. The moral compass moved, and the idea of national resilience and security — once confined to policy circles — became a shared responsibility across society and business.

This shift has already reshaped investment and innovation. Companies like ICEYE show how space technologies built for civilian use can become essential tools for national defence and European security. Solidium’s investment in ICEYE signalled that public capital now recognises defence tech as legitimate and necessary. Nokia has openly integrated defence considerations into its strategy, and AI, quantum, robotics, and energy startups across the Nordics are being drawn into resilience and sovereignty initiatives. Meanwhile, the ESG conversation is evolving from avoidance to responsibility: strengthening democratic resilience is a moral duty. Defence is no longer a liability; it is a necessity.

Boards must see the world as it truly is

These geopolitical forces place new demands on Nordic boards. Many still operate as if geopolitics were an occasional external shock rather than a structural force shaping markets, investment flows, and technological trajectories. 

Boards must understand their long-term geopolitical exposure, ensure they receive structured intelligence, and integrate geopolitical considerations into everything from supply chain planning and customer focus to R&D investment. Short-term shocks such as Ukraine must be distinguished from long-term structural changes that are reshaping the global economy. Resilience must be built before it is needed, not after a crisis hits.

Nordic companies may prefer to see business as clean, predictable, and global. But geopolitics no longer respects those boundaries. Even if technology is not interested in geopolitics, geopolitics is very interested in technology — and in the companies that build it. The leaders who recognise this early will shape the next decade of Nordic competitiveness. The rest will discover, too late, that geopolitics was the blind spot that determined their fate.