AI as a Systems Race

From Architecture to Execution: What It Will Take to Scale a Trusted AI Stack

The United States has stated a compelling objective: enable broad global access to U.S.-aligned AI systems while maintaining credible safeguards against military misuse and coercive deployment. While the architecture is taking shape, the more difficult task lies in execution. Recent discussions among industry, finance, government, and international participants highlighted that the central challenge is no […]

The AI Race Will Be Won in the Market

Washington has optimized its artificial intelligence (AI) strategy around frontier capabilities: model scale, compute density, and semiconductor controls. Those matter, but address only one side of the equation. The strategic contest is no longer about the most capable model. It is about whose AI stack achieves global deployment. AI is shifting from frontier research capability […]

The Global Competition for Dominance in Artificial Intelligence

While steam powered the 19th century and electricity defined the 20th, the prime transformative force shaping the 21st century is artificial intelligence (AI). It is the heartbeat of what Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, calls the “The Fourth Industrial Revolution,” a fusion of technologies blurring the boundaries between physical, digital, and biological […]

The Sovereign AI Architects

By Winston Ma, DRI-WISC Affiliate, Executive Director of NYU’s Global Public Investment Funds Forum (GPIFF), and Adjunct Professor, NYU School of Law This case study examines how Gulf region sovereign wealth funds—particularly in Abu Dhabi—are building AI capabilities across the full technology stack. While not universally replicable, the model offers insight into how capital, energy, […]

Beyond Fragmentation: Policy Options for Digital Harmonization

The best solutions to seemingly intractable problems often lie in pragmatism and embracing the art of what is possible. Many business leaders believe this is the case for regulating the global digital economy. The fragmentation of digital trade rules and regulations is already a problem, one that figures to get bigger and more complicated in […]

America’s AI Export Strategy: Welcome Progress, but More Is Needed

In July, the U.S. government released its long-awaited national AI strategy. Alongside the main document, three executive orders were announced, including one focused squarely on promoting the export of the American AI technology stack. Former U.S. Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios underscored the ambition during his recent remarks at the APEC Digital and AI Ministers Meeting, […]

Who Writes the Digital Rules, Wins the Future

Writing rules for the digital economy is a balancing act. Everyone agrees that to derive the maximum benefit from the digital economy requires keeping obstacles to trade to a minimum. Yet, there is also a consensus that questions of national security, consumer protection and competition are of crucial importance.  For political, economic and strategic reasons […]

Bridging the Transatlantic Digital Divide: From Principles to Pragmatism ?

Answering Today’s Biggest Digital Questions

This essay is part of my Toward a Trusted Tech Alliance series, which explores how democracies can move from fragmentation to common cause in shaping the digital future. In my last post, Different Histories, Different Rules, I traced how America’s rebellion against monarchy and Europe’s scars from authoritarianism forged two very different instincts toward regulation. […]

A Strategic Vision for US AI Leadership: Supporting Security, Innovation, Democracy and Global Prosperity

Introduction Artificial Intelligence (AI) is more than a technological breakthrough—it is a transformative force shaping the future economy, security landscape, global power dynamics, and daily life. The US, along with its international allies and private sector leaders, must navigate a pivotal moment where their choices will determine whether AI advances democracy and human progress or […]

American Innovation in Peril

DeepSeek’s ‘Sputnik Moment’ Exposes Holes In US Chip Curbs

America’s AI Strategy: Playing Defense While China Plays to Win

America is making a critical mistake in its AI strategy—it is overreaching in playing defense but doing the opposite in playing offense. While Washington is busy building regulatory walls to restrict access to AI compute power (a term encompassing computational resources used to train and run AI models), China is circumventing these barriers and strategically developing asymmetric advantages. […]