The issues surrounding AI are helping to change the balance of power between countries and particularly between the two current major powers, the US and China.

Since the pioneering work of Alan Turing in the 1950s, AI has attracted the interest of major states. They quickly recognized the energy issues associated with this new technology. The United States, the new dominant post-war power, was fast at the forefront of this discipline, relying on a proactive governmental will and supporting a high-quality industrial and academic fabric.

Europe and Japan then followed in the footsteps of the United States, but without ever being able to provide the financial and political means to match. In the 2000s, the race for artificial intelligence intensified with the development of the internet and new technologies. New players such as South Korea, Israel and Russia have launched strategic plans in this area. However, the latter cannot compete with the United States and China, whose economic boom in recent years has led to the desire to position itself at the forefront of this new technology.

• In 2017, the Chinese state specifically expressed a desire to become a world leader in information technologies.
• in 2024, the US and China emerge as the two biggest world powers in terms of artificial intelligence.

USA and China: two contrasting approaches

China sees AI as an asymmetric means to counter US economic and military might. The Middle Kingdom relies on the ability of its central power to steer the economic and scientific apparatus in such a way that it concretizes the most important strategic orientations of the country. The Chinese state also relies on companies grouped under the acronym BHATX that act as real geoeconomic tools for the central power: Baidu (search engine), Huawei (telecoms and telephony), Alibaba (e-commerce), Tencent (online messaging and video games) and Xiaomi (telephony) are at the forefront of AI development today.

Artificial intelligence has been the subject of real state strategy since the beginning of the Xi Jinping era. The aim is to coordinate the actions of the country’s political, economic, social and military forces with the aim of creating an ecosystem conducive to the development of AI, thus becoming the world leader in this field. In addition to these geopolitical considerations, artificial intelligence in China is considered a technology at the service of the state, allowing in particular the control and surveillance of its population.

Increased global competition

For its part, the United States intends to use the economic and technological power of its private sector, particularly GAFAMs, to offset the relative weakness of public investment. Two examples illustrate the Sino-American tensions in this area: A few years ago, the American government blacklisted the Chinese company Huawei, which specializes in fifth-generation networks (5G) and prohibited him from buying any strategic components in the country. The Chinese company was viewed by Washington as an influential agent.

More recently, the collection of data from users of the Chinese network TikTok has been the focus of the news. The European and American authorities fear in particular that Beijing could access the data of the users of the platform. Therefore, today, some governments or institutions are taking measures to ban their employees from using it. This is especially true for the European Parliament, but also for many governments around the world: Canada, United States, Belgium.

The race for AI is therefore now more than ever the subject of fierce global competition as states seek to use this new technology to consolidate their power in the game of international relations. A great challenge, Vladimir Putin summed up in 2017: “Whoever becomes a leader in AI will be the master of the world.”