AI’s New Geopolitics: Who Will Write the Rules?

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Artificial intelligence is no longer merely a technological revolution. It is becoming one of the defining geopolitical contests of the 21st century. 

Oil shaped industrial power. Semiconductors shaped the digital age. AI may shape not only economic competitiveness, but also diplomatic influence, military capability and the rules of global governance.

The 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), held in Shanghai from 17 to 20 July, made that shift visible. The event brought together political leaders, technology companies, researchers and international organisations. The discussion extended far beyond innovation. It centred on standards, access, safety, capacity and the distribution of technological power.

The most important development came even before the conference opened. On 16 July, representatives of 29 countries signed an agreement establishing the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, or WAICO, an intergovernmental body headquartered in Shanghai. China had proposed the organisation at WAIC a year earlier. Its launch now gives Beijing something more durable than a conference platform: an institution through which it can shape the language and architecture of global AI cooperation.

That does not mean the contest is settled. It means the battlefield is widening. The question is no longer only who can build the most powerful model. It is also who can write the rules, build the institutions and decide who gains access.

China’s offer: access, standards and influence

President Xi Jinping used the opening of WAIC 2026 to present China’s approach as one of development, security, inclusiveness and multilateral governance. Beijing promised 5,000 AI training and seminar opportunities for developing countries over the next five years and promoted cooperation with regional groupings across Asia, Africa, the Arab world and Latin America.

This message carries practical appeal. Many developing countries lack affordable computing power, local-language models, data infrastructure and trained specialists. Open-source systems, training programmes and lower-cost technologies can reduce those barriers. China is positioning itself as a provider of those tools at a time when US export controls continue to restrict China’s access to advanced chips and when technology supply chains are increasingly shaped by national-security concerns.

But the offer is not only developmental. It is also diplomatic. By presenting access to AI as a question of fairness, Beijing is linking technological cooperation to political influence. WAICO could become a channel through which China builds partnerships, promotes preferred standards and strengthens its role in the Global South.

That dual character matters. China’s language of openness should not be dismissed as empty rhetoric. Nor should it be accepted without scrutiny. Open-source access does not automatically answer questions about data governance, surveillance, censorship, state control or strategic dependence. The real issue is not whether China’s model is purely generous or purely self-interested. States rarely operate in such simple categories. The issue is how development assistance and geopolitical influence are being fused.

The UN’s warning: inclusion must be real

UN Secretary-General António Guterres offered a useful counterpoint. Addressing the conference, he argued that technology capable of shaping humanity’s future must not be governed by only a handful of countries or companies. He warned that computing power, data and expertise remain concentrated, while much of the developing world still lacks basic connectivity, energy access and investment.

His intervention sharpened the central contradiction of the AI age. The technology is described as universal, but the capacity to build and govern it is not. If only a small group of states and companies control advanced models, infrastructure and data, developing countries may be left adapting systems designed elsewhere rather than shaping technologies around their own languages, needs and values.

The UN’s response rests on three linked ideas: capacity, safety and sustainability. Countries need affordable computing resources, skills and locally adaptable systems. Cross-border technologies require common approaches to testing, risk and responsibility. And the environmental cost of AI — its demand for energy, water and land — must be measured rather than hidden.

Human control is the red line. Guterres stressed that people must retain authority over life-and-death decisions. That principle reaches beyond consumer applications. It touches autonomous weapons, critical infrastructure, policing, border systems and every field in which an algorithm can affect human rights or physical safety.

The challenge, therefore, is not only to prevent AI from becoming dangerous. It is also to prevent it from becoming exclusive.

The SCO, NATO and the strategic turn

AI is also entering the agendas of security organisations. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization has expanded its attention to digital connectivity, cybersecurity, innovation and AI cooperation. The WAICO founding group included several countries from the wider SCO community, linking the new body to an existing network of Eurasian political and economic relationships.

NATO is moving in the same strategic direction from a different institutional starting point. At its July 2026 summit in Ankara, the Alliance committed to advanced capabilities, cutting-edge technologies, cyber assets and the adoption of powerful AI models. AI is no longer treated as a specialist tool sitting outside defence policy. It is becoming part of operational planning, intelligence, logistics, autonomous systems and military-industrial investment.

This does not automatically create a clean technological Cold War between East and West. The global AI ecosystem is too interconnected for such a simple division. Researchers collaborate across borders. Supply chains remain international. Many countries want access to both Western and Chinese technologies while avoiding dependence on either.

Yet fragmentation is becoming harder to ignore. Different blocs may develop competing rules for data, model safety, military use, open-source access and state oversight. Technical standards can become political borders. Digital infrastructure can become a form of alliance.

Two futures are taking shape

WAIC 2026 revealed two possible futures. In one, AI governance fragments into competing ecosystems. States use export controls, standards, cloud infrastructure and model access to strengthen their own blocs. Countries with limited capacity are forced to choose technologies and rules designed elsewhere.

In the other, competition remains but is contained by shared institutions. Developing countries gain a meaningful role in rule-making. Safety standards cross borders. Open technologies are paired with transparent safeguards. The UN, WAICO and other regional or multilateral bodies cooperate rather than merely duplicate one another.

Neither future is guaranteed. China’s new institution may broaden participation, but it may also consolidate Beijing’s influence. Western states speak of trusted and secure technology, but their restrictions can deepen the same access gap they say they want to close. The UN can articulate universal principles, but principles without resources have limited power.

The decisive test will be implementation. Who finances computing capacity? Who controls the data? Which standards become global? How are smaller states represented? And what happens when commercial or military advantage collides with the promise of openness?

The rules may matter as much as the machines

Previous industrial revolutions rewarded those who entered early and wrote the rules. AI may follow the same pattern. The countries that control chips, data centres, models, talent and standards will possess more than economic advantage. They will gain the power to shape how others work, communicate, govern and defend themselves.

Shanghai showed China’s confidence as a global AI actor. It also showed that technological leadership is now inseparable from institution-building. Beijing is not only developing systems. It is building a diplomatic narrative and an organisation around them.

Guterres’s warning cut through the ceremony. Innovation can widen opportunity, but it can also harden hierarchy. The difference will not be decided by technology alone.

The urgent question is no longer simply who will build the smartest machines. It is whether the world can build rules intelligent enough to govern them — and inclusive enough to ensure that those rules are not written by the strongest states alone.

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AI Technology Geopolitics