The war ground is the legal concept of data sovereignty, which accepts that digital data is subject to the laws and government of the country where it is collected, processed and stored.
This maxim exposes data managed abroad to geopolitical risk, including situations where a government could legally seize or block access to data kept within its borders.
Some 90 per cent of global corporate leaders agree that data sovereignty is a business concern, according to an eight-country survey by American data management and storage company Everpure.
But 64 per cent don't have a formal data sovereignty strategy to address that risk, the poll of more than 2000 C-Suite executives found.
As well, the response from the 300 Australian chief executives in the survey showed the nation's large, outward-looking corporations are behind their overseas counterparts.
Some 74 per cent didn't have a data strategy, despite 85 per cent recognising it was a top-line business concern.
The Australian response was surprising because the nation was normally up to speed on such matters, Everpure chief technology officer Matt Oostveen said.
"The starting gun's been fired, but we're still only a few steps out," he told a briefing.
"We're lagging behind the global average and there's a gap to close."
That gap can't be closed by just ramping up security.
"Security people need to be educated that, unfortunately, you can't encrypt your way through this one," Mr Oostveen said.
For instance, the survey found that only 26 per cent of respondents believed a disruption due to something as simple as a government switching off a server was a key geopolitical risk.
"That's incredibly low," Mr Oostveen said.
"We have a group of people out there whistling past the graveyard here, because at any moment we could see a shift in an administration's point of view of particular countries that are exporting digital services.
"And we've seen it happen with some nations in Western Europe."
The issue attracting international attention is the legal clash between the US government's CLOUD Act and the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation.
The American law says a US-based technology company must bow to data requests by US authorities under warrant, regardless of where that data is held.
But under European law, EU firms and foreign cloud providers operating in Europe cannot hand over the personal data of EU citizens to a third country, barring some sort of official or treaty-like arrangement.
The Catch-22-like struggle is ongoing.
Meanwhile, Australia could be lagging on data sovereignty because of a sense of isolation and distance, Mr Oostveen suspects.
"It's been a real political issue for some time now in Western Europe," he said.
"Those countries have been at the forefront and the first to lay down a legislative platform to stand upon, whereas Australia has been largely behind the curve."
But some Australian corporations are responding by putting out tenders to move their data back onshore, under a phenomenon known as geopatriation.
"They're looking to protect it, and they're bringing it back where possible," Mr Oostveen said, adding that Australia might need more data centres.
"We need it. We need it for sovereignty."
