Building Trusted AI Ecosystems: How the United States and Europe Can Compete Together

I. Introduction

Geopolitical competition is becoming a race to deploy integrated, trusted digital ecosystems—spanning from physical infrastructure and critical minerals to cloud architecture and application software. For the United States, maintaining its technological edge means working with allied nations, particularly in Europe, to adopt trusted, secure tech stacks.

To advance this objective, the U.S. government is adopting a whole-of-government approach that moves beyond promoting individual product sales. The focus is shifting toward building complete AI ecosystems that combine physical infrastructure, financing, standards, and security safeguards.

Two complementary initiatives anchor this strategy. One, the Department of Commerce’s American AI Exports Program (AIExports), is a bottom-up mechanism for deploying integrated technology solutions abroad. The other, the Department of State’s Pax Silica initiative, is a top-down diplomatic framework for securing supply chains and aligning economic security policies among allies.

Together, these initiatives offer a potential blueprint for transatlantic cooperation. AIExports provides the commercial vehicle for deploying secure systems at scale while Pax Silica establishes the strategic foundation for trusted technology development and adoption. Their combined success will help determine whether the United States and Europe can build a resilient democratic technology ecosystem capable of competing with lower-cost, less secure alternatives promoted by strategic rivals.

II. AIExports.gov: The Commercial Engine

Authorized under Executive Order 14320 and managed by the International Trade Administration (ITA), AIExports is built on the premise that exporting software alone is insufficient to create secure, durable technology ecosystems. Instead, the United States must export integrated “full-stack AI technology packages” that reduce dependence on potentially adversarial infrastructure and vendors.

The two-phase program starts by identifying pre-set consortia of technology firms expected to provide capabilities across five layers of the AI stack:

1. AI-optimized hardware and infrastructure, including chips, servers, storage, cooling systems, and networking;
2. Data pipelines and labeling systems for collecting, cleaning, and preparing data;
3. AI models and systems, including foundation models and specialized domain-specific models;
4. Security and cybersecurity measures that protect data, model integrity, and meet compliance requirements;
5. AI applications tailored to sectors such as healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and public administration.

Companies determined to meet these requirements are eligible to receive federal support. For example, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) can accelerate export licensing for eligible technologies, while federal financing agencies provide loans, guarantees, and political-risk insurance.

For partners in Europe and elsewhere, this approach offers an alternative to purchasing disconnected technologies from multiple vendors. For example, a government seeking to modernize public services could procure an integrated package under a single framework that includes trusted cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity protections, AI-enabled administrative tools, and workforce training.

The second phase introduces a more flexible mechanism known as On-Demand Consortia.

This approach focuses on “buyer-responsive” architecture. When a foreign government or major enterprise issues a request for proposal for an AI project—such as a sovereign cloud environment, secure public-sector data platform, or national AI compute infrastructure—the U.S. government can work with industry to assemble a customized consortium tailored to that opportunity.

Unlike standing consortia, these teams only need to provide the stack components required for a particular project. This flexibility allows smaller American software firms, cybersecurity providers, and specialized AI developers to participate alongside larger cloud and hardware companies.

This second approach is particularly relevant for Europe, where privacy requirements, data-localization rules, and sector-specific regulations often differ across jurisdictions. A customized consortium responding to a German industrial AI project may require different capabilities than one supporting healthcare modernization in Finland or digital-government initiatives in Greece.

III. Pax Silica: The Diplomatic Foundation

Commerce’s export-oriented initiatives operate alongside Pax Silica, the Department of State’s diplomatic framework for securing the foundations of the AI economy. Launched in 2025, the initiative seeks to align allied economic security policies around critical components of the AI stack, including semiconductors, compute capacity, energy infrastructure, and critical minerals.

For the transatlantic relationship, Pax Silica performs two important functions.

Preventing Regulatory Fragmentation

Europe has often approached emerging technologies through comprehensive regulatory frameworks, most notably the EU AI Actto regulate AI applications that infringe on privacy, enable discrimination, or violate other rights. Those frameworks enhance trust and accountability—but also create an uneven regulatory landscape.

Pax Silica seeks to reduce this risk by fostering dialogue on risk assessment, investment screening, cybersecurity standards, and supply-chain security among allied nations. A more harmonized regulatory environment would make it easier for trusted AI systems developed in one democratic market to be deployed in another. In principle, greater interoperability should lower costs, accelerate adoption, and strengthen the collective competitiveness of Western technology providers.

Maximizing Comparative Advantage

In addition to policy harmonization, Pax Silica also aims to secure the physical foundations of AI by facilitating a durable network of trusted partners. The framework promotes a distributed model in which countries contribute according to their comparative advantages.

For example, one ally may specialize in semiconductor research, another in critical-mineral processing, and another in renewable energy generation needed to power large-scale data centers. By coordinating these capabilities, participating countries can reduce supply-chain vulnerabilities while preserving economic efficiency.

Together, these two efforts aim to establish a trusted perimeter within which advanced technologies, investment, and expertise can move more freely.

IV. The U.S. Government as Ecosystem Builder

The phrase “whole-of-government” is sometimes overused in the context of far-reaching, complex policy challenges. But building a trusted transatlantic technology ecosystem will require exactly that—the mobilization of numerous U.S. government agencies, each with a vital role to play. These include:

• National Security Council: Provides strategic direction and ensures that commercial initiatives support broader geopolitical objectives;
• Department of Commerce (ITA and BIS): Markets American technology solutions abroad, coordinates industry participation, and facilitates export licensing;
• Department of State: Expands the Pax Silica network and manages diplomatic engagement with allied governments;
• Office of Science and Technology Policy and U.S. Trade Representative: Support technical standards alignment and address trade barriers that impede trusted technology deployment;
• Export-Import Bank and U.S. International Development Finance Corporation: Provide financing tools that make large-scale infrastructure and AI projects commercially viable.

Coordinating among these entities helps harness the full capabilities (resources and expertise) of the U.S. government. This coordinated approach recognizes that success increasingly depends on the ability to organize capital, supply chains, standards, talent, and security policies into a coherent ecosystem.

V. Challenges and Structural Tensions

Despite their complementary goals, AIExports and Pax Silica create several challenges that must be managed carefully.

Customers vs. Partners

A trusted ecosystem will be more sustainable if allies view themselves as stakeholders rather than customers. Yet European governments may question whether they are being asked to purchase U.S. technology and align their regulatory policies while receiving limited opportunities to participate directly in the commercial benefits generated by the ecosystem. Much like traditional concerns over imports crowding out local development, there may be a concern that the relationship is too one-sided.

Addressing this will likely require greater incorporation of European firms. This could take several forms, such as building European firms into consortium structures, joint investment initiatives, and collaborative research efforts. A trusted ecosystem will be more sustainable if allies view themselves as stakeholders rather than customers.

Getting Comparative Advantage Right

Spreading the economic benefits—and maximizing partner buy-in—means catering to overseas capabilities. For example, European companies play leading roles in industrial software, digital identity systems, and privacy-enhancing technologies. Incorporating these strengths into consortium structures would improve interoperability while reinforcing the collaborative nature of the transatlantic ecosystem. Failure to integrate allied capabilities could limit adoption and undermine the broader goal of creating a genuinely shared technology marketplace.

Institutional Complexity

The whole-of-government approach requires careful coordination. European governments and businesses may encounter overlapping engagement channels. A ministry considering AI infrastructure modernization could simultaneously interact with State Department officials discussing Pax Silica cooperation and Commerce Department representatives promoting AIExports solutions. In the absence of unified effort and engagement, these parallel tracks can create confusion and bureaucratic duplication.

VI. Conclusion

The emergence of AIExports and Pax Silica reflects a broader transition in U.S. technology strategy toward building and sustaining entire technology ecosystems in partnership with allies. The greatest threat to Western technological leadership may not be external competition but internal fragmentation. If trusted partners pursue incompatible standards, duplicative infrastructure, and competing sovereignty initiatives, they risk undermining the scale advantages necessary to compete globally.

When effectively aligned, these two programs create a powerful dual-track framework. Pax Silica helps secure the physical and regulatory foundations of the AI economy by coordinating trusted supply chains, standards, and economic security policies. AIExports complements this effort by delivering integrated technology solutions incorporating allied participation and meeting the operational needs of partner nations.

The defining question is whether democracies can transform trust into a strategic advantage. If they succeed, they can build AI ecosystems that are not only innovative, but also resilient, interoperable, and attractive to countries seeking alternatives to authoritarian technology models. If they fail, they risk ceding the future digital order to those able to organize ecosystems more effectively.