AI reshapes US-China rivalry and empowers non-state actors
- Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping the geopolitical landscape, driving a messy bipolar rivalry between the United States and China while upending traditional alliances and empowering non-state actors.
- The emerging technological landscape features two great powers competing for AI dominance, with the rest of the field far behind.
- Chinese open-weight AI models have gained traction in poorer developing countries as well as advanced economies where businesses look for affordable enterprise solutions.
Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping the geopolitical landscape, driving a messy bipolar rivalry between the United States and China while upending traditional alliances and empowering non-state actors. While America retains an important lead over China in model sophistication and the computing power required to deploy them, Beijing has positioned itself as a fast follower partly by reverse-engineering US achievements to build impressive frontier models.
Bipolar Rivalry and Interdependence
The emerging technological landscape features two great powers competing for AI dominance, with the rest of the field far behind. Beijing seeks to win the future by diffusing Chinese open-weight models globally and using AI-driven breakthroughs to turbocharge its economy, backed by strengths including scientific and engineering talent and a chokehold on rare-earth elements. However, dreams of self-reliance remain unfulfilled as the US and China navigate mutual dependencies across a contested world economy. A Chinese rare-earth embargo could throttle US data-center construction, while tighter US export controls could constrict flows of capital and technology to Chinese firms, revealing insecure interdependence on both sides.
The US and Chinese techno-spheres overlap significantly. Chinese open-weight AI models have gained traction in poorer developing countries as well as advanced economies where businesses look for affordable enterprise solutions.
Corporate Power and Non-State Actors
International competition is no longer confined to governments alone. Nations share the strategic terrain with legitimate corporations, terrorist organizations, and drug cartels, with AI shifting how interactions between state and non-state actors play out. Today’s top AI firms operate as mighty, semi-sovereign actors. While governments can curb their influence—evidenced by the Pentagon’s crackdown on Anthropic earlier in the year and the expectation that leading Chinese firms heed directives from Beijing—vital instruments of competition remain in private hands.
This dynamic renders leading labs strategically indispensable and makes the relationship between corporations and the state a core determinant of national power. It also introduces the risk that private actors could trigger a global crisis.