US Forces Allies to Choose Sides in AI Race with China
The United States is drafting an ultimatum forcing partner nations to choose between the US-led Pax Silica coalition and China's rival artificial intelligence initiatives.
According to a State Department draft letter, the U.S. government is preparing to issue a strict warning to its international partners: align with Washington or Beijing, but not both. The draft explicitly cautions that "to be part of everything is to be part of nothing." This move aims to pressure countries into committing fully to the U.S.-led Pax Silica coalition, threatening to exclude any nation that participates in China's competing AI frameworks.
The Pax Silica initiative was established last year to secure global supply chains for semiconductors, critical minerals, and AI models. Currently, about two dozen countries and the European Union have joined the coalition. Kazakhstan is currently the only nation holding membership in both the U.S. alliance and China's rival framework, making it a critical player due to its vast reserves of high-tech minerals. In response to Pax Silica, Chinese President Xi Jinping launched the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization in July, promoting China's open-weight AI models as direct alternatives to proprietary U.S. systems from developers like OpenAI and Anthropic.
For AI practitioners and developers, this escalating geopolitical divide could fragment the global technology ecosystem. A forced separation between U.S. and Chinese supply chains may restrict access to critical hardware components and open-weight models, potentially driving up development costs. Furthermore, multinational tech firms may find themselves legally and operationally restricted from collaborating across borders, limiting the international exchange of research and talent.
The Chinese embassy in Washington has criticized the proposed U.S. policy, arguing that forcing nations to choose sides will ultimately slow down global AI progress and harm international interests. As Washington tightens its grip on the supply chains powering next-generation technologies, the global AI landscape is rapidly shifting from a collaborative open frontier into a highly polarized geopolitical battlefield.
This is our own summary of reporting by The Decoder
