As the US and China form AI blocs, countries are increasingly torn between them

By Chan Ho-him and Didi Tang

With the two leading AI powers, the United States and China, forming their own AI blocs, other countries are maneuvering to harness the strengths of both groupings and avoid losing out.

As the rivalry intensifies, experts say the window for countries to be able to choose freely between the two AI superpowers may be narrowing, forcing them to at one point pick between the U.S.-led Pax Silica and the China-inspired World AI Cooperation Organization.

That could put many countries in a dilemma: Do they go with the U.S.’s most advanced chips and AI technologies, or join China’s more affordable, open-source AI systems?

Kazakhstan, a Central Asia nation of about 21 million people, is a rare example of a country that has sought to bridge that gap.

Just three weeks after its AI minister Zhaslan Madiyev visited Washington in June to join the U.S.