The International Race to Dominate AI
The nations in possession of the most advanced technology tend to dominate the world. Europe’s colonialism was made possible by the Industrial Revolution of early 19th Century that gave it an edge in manufacturing, military technology and control of sea lanes. It also set in motion a competion between the European powers, which is now called the Great Game, to press each other to grab as much of territory as possible.
The unfolding AI (artificial intelligence) revolution is even more foundational than the Industrial Revolution two centuries ago and its impact on geopolitics will be equally earthshaking.
Presently, the two most advanced nations in AI are the US and China. This is evident from available applications and products in search, social media, GenAI, LLMs, industrial robots, self-driven cars, drone technologies, and applications to drug design and other fields.
The US remains the leader in business and military applications of AI. China was helped by its early decision to firewall the internet that provided motivation to its engineers to develop own applications. Its products were facilitated by its manufacturing prowess and strong engineering management.
Other countries are scrambling to get into the race to develop new applications. But most don’t have a chance for AI requires a population and technology base together with an appropriate economic ecosystem that few countries possess.
The US, China, Germany, Japan, India, UK, and France are the seven largest economies in nominal dollar terms, and China, US, India, and Russia are the four largest in purchasing power parity (PPP) dollars.
Although US and China are the dominant powers in AI, Russia is also considerably strong in certain areas. Western sanctions and the Ukraine War have brought China and Russia quite close with significant geopolitical implications.
Some people believe that BRICS as a bloc that could challenge America’s power. But BRICS is too fragmented politically with divergent views about the future to constitute a credible threat to the US.
India has chosen a laissez-faire approach to the field of AI, which has resulted in American companies dominating its industrial and business landscape. It has not framed policies that encourage development of its own AI-based software, hardware, or social media platforms.
Population collapse
One of the less discussed matters in the media is that of a coming population collapse, the beginnings of which are evident in Asia and Europe. The collapse is due in part to technology that gives humans greater agency over their bodies, but also because AI-based social media has so influenced our minds that many see no need to have babies.
“China’s population, reported to be 1.41 billion, will drop to 330 million by the end of the century,” predicts Yi Fuxian of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For the population to fall to one-fourth of what it is now has huge geopolitical implications. For one, this decline is one reason that China is investing big in AI technology.
The population of Western countries is also going down but for now they are making up for it by immigration. This has already begun to create social pressures as in the grooming scandal in Britain.
India has a demographic edge for twenty years or so before its population will begin to fall. But although India is the fastest growing economy in the world right now, part of that growth is driven by its continuing population increase.
India is not able to compete with China or the West due to high costs of regulation and labor, and shortage of skilled manpower and investment. India’s political landscape is complicated and many of its opposition parties are quite happy to be guided by foreign NGOs who are working against India’s national interests.
DEI quotas were one reason Kamala Harris lost the recent American election, with the result that Trump is going to roll them back. The system of quotas in India is more deeply entrenched with support from all political parties and now there is a competitive push for even more extensive socialist freebies. The argument can be made that if growth in the West had not led to opportunities for Indians to excel and send money back to India, India would have continued in its socialist dystopia of the pre-80s era.
It appears that the political future in the age of AI won’t be the unipolar world that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. As the world globalizes further, the cultural clash between new immigrant groups that espouse radical sectarianism and the host populations will sharpen.
Europe’s strength overseas during the colonial age was based on the use of overwhelming force, but this policy cannot be used on its own minority immigrant groups. When the fertility rate collapsed, Europe embraced replacement migration without determining if the migrants can or will assimilate. Without assimilation, some European nations will disappear in the coming decades.
My new book The Age of Artificial Intelligence summarizes these developments in AI in the context of evolving geopolitical equations. It also deals with the historical experience of the West, China, and India in coping with major upheavals as that will serve as a template for the response to future AI-triggered disruptions.
AI will continue to bring new benefits to humanity and reduce toil from the daily life of the individual, but it comes with unique ethical, legal, and philosophical challenges. The ubiquity of AI in all aspects of life will be a time of great estrangement from nature with increasing breakdown of social and political institutions.
Also, just as the period of colonial expansion in the 19th century set European nations on a path of conflict that led to the two World Wars, the AI race will also lead to conflict and wars.
Reference
S. Kak, The Age of Artificial Intelligence. 2025.
