OpenAI becomes vehicle of US soft power
From fDi Beyond Borders
Beyond Borders
The latest news and analysis on cross-border investment
September 4, 2025
| Welcome everyone to a new episode of Beyond Borders. In this part of the world, summer is coming to an end. It leaves behind a hint of melancholy, but also a fresh mind full of new inspiration from good summer reads. This year, I finally committed to a sci-fi classic that had been on my must-read list for years: Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series. They chronicle the rise of a new dominant civilisation, The Foundation, as a thousand-year-old galactic empire comes crumbling down. Lacking any significant natural resources, the Foundation thrives and builds a new empire from scratch by leveraging its unrivalled technological advantage. As I was reading Asimov’s books, my mind regularly drifted back to the reality of today’s race for artificial intelligence supremacy. The US and China are building a substantial lead over anyone else in this space. Their AI ambitions are already enshrined in foreign policy, and their respective AI champions are acting as a vehicle of soft power, as Alex reports in his excellent story about the international expansion of OpenAI’s Stargate programme. The stakes cannot be higher. Provided AI lives up to expectations, the outcome of this new cold war, as it is already characterised, will determine the dominating world power of the 21st century and beyond. Any country gaining global AI leadership will be able to exert a level of influence in technology, the economy, culture and politics that is destined to go unrivalled for the years to come. Not every country is willing to remain a passive actor in this unfolding AI race. The conversation around the influence of US and Chinese AI models taking on the contours of technological colonisation is mounting. It has its merits. The most popular US and European large language models, for example, are trained with data mostly coming from developed countries, where large datasets are bigger and more accessible, which inevitably ends up reflecting a system of values and norms that may not necessarily apply in other geographies. Alternative LLMs are thus being developed and launched. Earlier this week, Switzerland launched its own LLM, Apertus, which it characterises as “a fully open, transparent, multilingual language model”. I suspect many other such initiatives will see the light. A final note on Asimov’s books. They are a cautionary tale for an AI-powered humanity. No spoilers, but it doesn’t end up well for planet Earth. The AI race is not just about global dominance; it may well be about global survival too. |
| That’s it for this week. We love to hear from our readers, so get in touch at [email protected]. |
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