Geopolitics of AI in a multipolar context

Summary

In a multipolar geopolitical context, AI is emerging not as a purely technological domain but as a strategic arena in which states, firms, and regional blocs compete for leadership through control over disruptive innovation, data, compute, talent, and standards. The talk highlights that the race is not limited to breakthrough models or frontier systems: AI innovation can follow several paths, including radical leaps driven by foundational model development, mission-oriented public investment, domain-specific adaptation, and diffusion through applied use cases, while incremental innovation remains equally decisive because it is often through continuous optimization, integration into existing sectors, and improvements in efficiency, reliability, and deployment that countries and companies consolidate real competitive advantage. This dynamic is deeply tied to global value chains, especially the concentration of semiconductor design and manufacturing, access to advanced chips, cloud infrastructure, and the growing power of hyperscalers, whose control over compute and platforms increasingly shapes who can innovate at scale. Within this landscape, Europe occupies an ambivalent position: it is strong in regulation, industrial capabilities, research, and trusted governance frameworks, but remains structurally weaker in cloud dominance, chip sovereignty, and platform scale, which risks limiting its strategic autonomy unless it can better connect innovation policy, industrial policy, and digital infrastructure. The talk also stresses that the governance of technology is now a central geopolitical issue, as countries are not only competing over AI capabilities but also over the rules, norms, and institutional models that will define acceptable uses of AI, from safety and accountability to market power and democratic control. Looking ahead, the future of AI is likely to be shaped less by a single global winner than by a fragmented but interconnected order, where technological leadership will depend on the ability to combine innovation capacity, resilient supply chains, regulatory influence, and long-term strategic coordination. Date: April, 29th 2026