US demands that countries choose side in AI race with China - Reuters
Kyiv • UNN
The United States is warning dozens of countries that they must choose between the US-led AI coalition and Beijing’s program. The Pax Silica initiative aims to secure supply chains for AI models, semiconductors, and minerals.
The United States is preparing to tell dozens of countries that they must choose a side in the artificial intelligence race with China, warning that they will be excluded from the US-led AI coalition if they also sign up for Beijing’s competing program, citing a US official and an internal draft, Reuters reports, writes UNN.
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Last year, Washington launched the Pax Silica initiative, aimed at securing supply chains for artificial intelligence models, semiconductors and critical minerals, amid fierce technological rivalry with Beijing.
Around two dozen countries have joined, including Kazakhstan, a key potential source of critical minerals that has also joined China’s coalition, as well as close US allies such as Japan, Australia and South Korea.
The draft letter, prepared by the US State Department, is addressed to the 35 signatories of the American "AI Opportunity Statement," signed in June. They include members of the nonbinding Pax Silica framework initiative and other countries that have expressed a desire to align AI cooperation with Washington.
By pressuring countries to choose a side, the United States hopes to deprive China of resources in the race to create the most advanced AI, which could be used for military or economic dominance.
In July, Chinese President Xi Jinping established a competing "World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization," promoting his country’s open-weight technology as a challenge to US influence in the rapidly developing field.
Kazakhstan is the only country known so far to have joined both initiatives, raising alarm in Washington.
"Being part of everything means being part of nothing. Signing the Pax Silica Declaration is not just membership, but a commitment," the letter says, urging countries to "make a conscious choice" on AI.
"It cannot be pursued alongside membership in duplicative initiatives whose expectations conflict with our own," the letter says, without specifically mentioning China.
Reuters was unable to determine when the United States intends to send the letter, or whether changes could be made to it before it is sent. The draft was undated.
The State Department told Reuters that it would not comment on "the alleged leak of internal documents."
The race between the United States and China for technological leadership has reached a pivotal moment, as Chinese open-weight artificial intelligence models have rapidly overtaken the systems of US companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
US officials drafted the letter to make it clear that "you cannot have it both ways," a US official told Reuters.
"It is difficult to imagine how a country can reliably position itself as a trusted partner in one technological ecosystem while simultaneously signing onto an initiative developed by China to advance a competing vision of artificial intelligence," the official said.