Scott Singer and Pavlo Zvenyhorodskyi
In July, both the United States and China put forward their national visions for AI development and governance through their own AI Action Plans. Washington’s plan leans into the rhetoric of AI dominance and transactional dealmaking to advance U.S. national interests. In stark contrast, Beijing has pitched the world on a vision of AI governance that opposes U.S. hegemony, supports multilateralism, and embraces global capacity building in its Global AI Governance Action Plan.
Yet beneath the surface, the two countries’ AI strategies are converging in strikingly similar directions. Both now pursue the same three-pronged approach: accelerating domestic AI adoption, enabling government-supported AI exports and the open-source ecosystem, and managing AI risks without constraining development.
This convergence is new. U.S. AI policy has pivoted since President Donald Trump took office, more vocally supporting the open-source ecosystem and AI exports while downplaying AI safety. Chinese AI policy has also transformed, though over a longer time horizon: its AI policy over the last two years has moved away from the heavy-handed ideological measures. It now has sufficient technological capabilities to usefully deploy the technology in its economy and globally and has begun to slowly increase its discussion of frontier AI risks in key policy documents.
This strategic alignment will fundamentally shape global AI competition, turning it from an ideological confrontation into a race for domestic productivity gains and global technological influence. In that race, it will be the capacity to deliver on the AI Action Plans—rather than their ideological visions—which will determine which superpower shapes the future of AI.
The AI Action Plans in Context
No comments:
Post a Comment