The challenge with something like that though is the UN rolling down with copyright violations, making the place a cyber target for sovereign nation espionage assets, etc. It would be very short-sighted and would doom the place very quickly.

"Independence" is one thing, but it doesn't stop the strike teams to enforce their copyright laws or to gain access to the data of others.

You also have other concerns, like the cost of power generation infrastructure, cooling systems, and the like. You are into hundreds of millions very easily for a data center if you didn't have the utility grid to simply connect to and add a couple of Caterpillar diesel generators for failover.

I'm thinking beer & wine production (high margin agricultural products), the web marketing that goes with both..

A different spin on the 'neutral data' idea though would be the idea of a duty-free import/export zone... which is the engine that drove Dubai's development.

Another Gulcher suggested being the "neutral site" data storage platform for the world. This has quite a few plusses.

A tax haven with a tourism industry attraction element while having basic revenue generation - such as orchards / farming / etc. might be the angle.

While others have mentioned petrochemical & such, stuff like that has a very high capital bar of entry, requires a lot of technical expertise, and the emergency responders to accidents & such that immediately bloat the population.

I think a more simple approach with tourism, agriculture, specialty products, software industry, various technology development, and a 'simple life' would be more attractive.

The model would need to assume that immigrants bring their own skills and capital.

This is the sort of real estate opportunity that I was suggesting might come up in my Purchasing Atlantis from a debt-ridden country thread.