Internet Standards and Frontier Technologies: Lessons from the Past, Tasks for Today, Choices for the Future – WS 05 2026

Starting from a review of Internet standards, this session examines how open standards can help deliver the Internet we want: resilient, secure, interoperable and inclusive, especially in a time of rapid technological and political change.

As debates on the future of Internet governance continue beyond WSIS+20, one question is becoming increasingly urgent: how do we preserve an open, secure and interoperable Internet while integrating new and more complex technologies?

The Internet’s success has long depended on open standards developed in multistakeholder processes and adopted across networks on a voluntary basis. This model enabled innovation, resilience and global interoperability. But today, the deployment of more complex, automation-dependent and sometimes non-backwards-compatible technologies is putting that model under pressure. At the same time, policymakers are taking a growing interest in standards-setting, while technologies such as AI, quantum computing and other frontier innovations are reshaping the technical and political environment in which the Internet evolves.