Ayesha Munshi
Artificial intelligence has rapidly become a central force around which global power is reorganising. As states race to build data centres, secure energy supplies, and develop the infrastructure required to train advanced AI systems, a new hierarchy is emerging. One that is defined not just by military strength or economic size, but by control over data. In this unfolding landscape, AI is reshaping competition, inequality, and governance worldwide.
At the heart of this transformation lies an intensifying competition between the United States and China. The United States continues to lead in AI innovation, particularly in the domain of generative AI, a position cemented by the launch of ChatGPT in 2022. That moment did more than spark public discourse, it demonstrated the strategic importance of large language models in shaping future economies, information dispersal, and security frameworks.
This dominance in innovation is pioneered by elite institutions such as Stanford and MIT, and powered by major technology firms including OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google. The United States’ success in this field rests on a combination of venture capital investment, a willingness to experiment with different ideas, and relatively flexible regulatory conditions that allow ideas to scale quickly.
China, however, has pursued a different path, one that is no less ambitious. AI was designated a national priority with the explicit goal of achieving global leadership by 2030. Rather than relying on decentralized innovation, the Chinese state has mobilised vast resources to train talent, subsidise firms, and rapidly expand infrastructure.
Crucially, China’s governance environment allows companies to collect and deploy enormous volumes of user data for AI training. In an era where data functions as strategic raw material, this expansive scale offers a significant advantage in algorithm development and deployment, even as it raises profound ethical concerns.
AI dominance, is not determined solely by who builds the most data centres or produces the most advanced models. Power in the AI era is unevenly distributed, reflecting widening gaps between technologically advanced states and those lacking access to data and infrastructure. Rather than evolving into a unified global system, AI is further deepening divisions, with a small number of states shaping its direction while others struggle to participate meaningfully.
The global south is increasingly likely to become victims who must suffer the global consequences, whether it is an increased susceptibility to climate change or exploitation for rare earth materials required to make AI hardware. These inequalities are deeply rooted in the international system and as long as they are benefiting the technologically advanced states, weaker states will continue being exploited.
Alongside these obvious consequences, AI has become a powerful instrument of information warfare. Generative models enable the rapid production of deepfakes, synthetic news, and targeted disinformation campaigns that can destabilise societies and undermine democratic processes. Unlike traditional propaganda, these operations are designed to scale endlessly and operate invisibly, eroding trust in institutions while remaining difficult to trace or counter.
Russia’s Pravda network illustrates this shift. The network has published millions of articles targeting more than eighty countries, laundering and amplifying content from Russian state media to legitimise military aggression and cast doubt on Western support for Ukraine. Most of these articles are never meant to be read by humans. Instead, they appear designed to flood the internet with content that is scraped by web crawlers and absorbed into the training data of AI systems, embedding propaganda directly into future information ecosystems.
At the same time, AI is capable of strengthening authoritarian forms of governance. Tools like facial recognition, policing, and large-scale data analysis allows states to track people’s movements, behaviours, and associations with unprecedented detail. As these tools spread across borders, often exported by major powers, repression becomes easier to adopt and harder to resist. The result is a gradual normalisation of surveillance as governance, challenging basic expectations of privacy and human rights.
Finally, AI is reshaping diplomacy and policymaking itself. Governments increasingly rely on algorithms and such tools to analyse intelligence and assess risks. While these systems are efficient, they introduce new issues including bias and overly depending on AI to give the best possible answer. When states or policymakers act on recommendations they cannot fully understand or explain, accountability in foreign policy becomes blurred.
The rise of AI therefore signals not just a technological shift, but a fundamental reshaping of global order. As power concentrates around data, infrastructure, and the power to set rules and regulations, the challenge for the international community is no longer simply to compete, but to regulate. Without meaningful cooperation, ethical constraints, and inclusive frameworks, AI risks reinforcing existing hierarchies and embedding instability into the international system. The question is no longer whether AI will shape geopolitics, but whether states can regulate its development before the consequences become permanent.
The author is a third year student at the Aga Khan University, Faculty of Arts and Science program. She is majoring in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, and holds a special interest for international relations, wishing to pursue a career in the field.
