Beyond the US-China Binary: Aspiring AI Powers and the Diversification of Global AI Ecosystems

An Oxford China Policy Lab series

Authors: Sydney Reis*, Zilan Qian*, Karuna Nandkumar*, Kayla Blomquist+, Sam Hogg, Sumaya Nur Adan, Jonas Balkus, Renan Araujo, Songruowen Ma, Tiffany Chan¹

Note: This living set of country profiles is intended to be an accessible resource for policymakers, academics, and industry professionals, and all others seeking to understand the international relations of the technology transforming our virtual feeds and physical environments. It reflects the state of affairs at the time of writing (December 2025).

Introduction

With US and Chinese AI ecosystems producing the world’s top performing AI models and receiving the highest amounts of global investment, AI has become the new arena of great power competition. Everything from AI funding, to compute power, and even AI companionship, is now framed as a competition between the US and China. Moreover, reaching Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) – defined by experts as AI with human-level cognitive ability across a wide breadth and depth of skills – has been discussed as a US-China race in policy, military, and commercial circles since 2020. But beyond the US-China binary, numerous aspiring AI powers play diverse and important roles in AI development and governance. This series explores how aspiring AI powers are diversifying the global AI ecosystem, and in the process, challenging the assumption that AI development and diffusion is a simple race between the US and China.

In America’s AI Action Plan, the US has expressed explicit ambitions for global adoption of its AI systems, computing hardware, and standards. Meanwhile, China has implied similar goals by promoting its AI models as affordable alternatives, exporting digital infrastructure through the Digital Silk Road and aligned initiatives, and establishing interoperable AI standards, as outlined in its Global AI Governance Action Plan. Today, the US and China are widely recognized as the key shapers of this century’s technological revolution, and the accompanying opportunities, risks, and rules of the road. Despite prolific emphasis on AI as a race between the US and China, the presence of other aspiring AI powers complicates a simple picture of US and Chinese AI dominance. In many cases, these states are establishing their own spheres of AI influence, building foundational models, promoting their own AI norms and standards, and leveraging the power that comes with their comparative advantages within the AI development chain. The strategies and relative strengths and weaknesses of these aspiring AI powers tell a more complex, and arguably complete, story of AI’s impact on geopolitics, now and in the years to come.

This series provides a high-level analysis of a set of consequential aspiring AI powers from 2020-2025: Brazil, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the UAE, and the UK.² It explores each state’s AI strategy; contributions, or what states offer to the global AI ecosystem; and interests, or what the state needs from its own or the global AI ecosystem to achieve its strategic goals. These states have rapidly growing AI ecosystems; ambitious plans for AI development; and, to varying extents, demonstrable influence on emerging AI governance structures and norms. From either a hard capabilities or soft power standpoint, these states are seeking to develop their own leverage in the context of US-China AI competition and power concentration.

Structure

Each country profile contains four subsections on the respective state’s (i) overarching AI strategy; (ii) relative contributions to AI development, diffusion, and governance; (iii) relative interests or “asks” in order to achieve development, diffusion, and governance goals; and (iv) alignment with the US and Chinese AI ecosystems.

For the purposes of this document, a given state’s overarching AI strategy refers to the AI strategy that was enacted at the state’s highest level of government and is currently active. For most states, this is simply referred to as the national AI strategy. However, state actions can deviate from the formal rhetoric found in national strategies, which may serve as aspirational signaling rather than reflecting practical policy plans and implementation. In the future, it will become more clear whether the actions of these aspiring AI powers will align with their national AI strategies.

In addition to official rhetoric, this report documents each state’s current relative contributions and relative interests – in relation to each other and to the US and China – in various aspects of AI development, diffusion, and governance. AI development requires access to tangible resources such as talent, compute, natural resources, energy, and investment. It also requires immaterial resources such as soft power to influence international AI governance and the strength of domestic innovation ecosystems to attract talent, investment, and corporate development.

After presenting these three variables, each country profile details its connectivity to the US and Chinese AI ecosystems. Previously disruptive technologies have seen states rally around different ‘poles.’ During the Cold War, for instance, states rallied around the US or USSR, the two poles in the nuclear arms race. In the 1990s and early 2000s, few states had their own internet infrastructure, adopting instead the ‘open’ US-based model, the ‘closed’ Chinese model, or, at a time, the highly regulated EU model. Today, state approaches to AI are fundamentally different. Keen to avoid the dependencies of technologies past, many states are vying for AI sovereignty, defined by the UK government as “the ability to access, influence or control the development and deployment of critical capabilities to protect national interests and unlock economic growth”. While there is little consensus on the definition and viability of AI sovereignty, many states collaborate with the US, China, or both to rapidly develop and deploy AI for domestic economic benefits.

Mapping the Geopolitics of AI

Taken together, this comprehensive analysis of state strategies, contributions, interests, and US-China alignment sheds light on a new field: the geopolitics of AI. The web of states’ intentions, interests, and alliances can lay the groundwork for researchers to investigate fundamental questions at the intersection of AI, international relations, and policy today: Why do states make certain decisions regarding AI development and governance? How can interested stakeholders predict key shifts in national and international AI landscapes? While this series does not claim to provide definitive answers to these questions, it provides a starting point for further research. By anchoring aspiring AI powers firmly in the study of international relations – as independent actors with agency and varying levels of influence in the international system – researchers, academics, and policymakers can add needed complexity to the repeated adage that the geopolitics of AI is confined to a “race” between the US and the China.

1. *Denotes primary authors who contributed most significantly to the content of the paper. ⁺Denotes authors who contributed most significantly to the framing and direction of the paper. We are grateful to Caroline Jeanmaire, Clint Yoo, Huw Roberts, Joël Christoph, Luis Enrique Urtubey De Cesaris, Nikhil Mulani, Saad Siddiqui, Sharinee Jagtiani, and Zar Motik Adisuryo for their valuable feedback on this project. Authorship of this project indicates contribution but does not imply full agreement with every claim.

2. These states were selected for the country profiles due to their substantial engagement in one or several of the following topics between the years 2020-2025: (1) ambitions and a dedicated plan to develop foundational models, (2) substantial attempts to shape international AI governance, standards, norms, and laws, and, (3) noteworthy dedication of resources to developing domestic or international AI ecosystems, whether financial, natural, or talent based. This is not intended as a comprehensive set of all important actors in the geopolitics of AI, but rather an illustrative set of cases that can be added to and expanded upon in future publications.