Pax Silica Signs 35 Nations as China AI Gains Ground
Get the Tech newsletter
Daily tech — startups, AI labs, chips, the launches that shape the next decade. Free.
- State Department expanded its Pax Silica initiative this week, with undersecretary Jacob Helberg announcing 35 countries signed the "Declaration on AI Opportunity" to build a U.S.-led AI and chip supply-chain bloc
- Chinese AI models are closing the capability gap with U.S. frontier models while offering them at no cost or significantly lower cost, per U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission member Emily Weinstein
- The Anthropic export controls — the Trump administration's decision to restrict access to Anthropic's newest AI models — have left the U.S. industry "frozen in place" waiting for coherent policy, per CNAS' Daniel Remler
- Weinstein warned widespread adoption of Chinese AI in the Global South could create a "Huawei model on steroids" — countries reliant on Chinese infrastructure not interoperable with U.S. systems
- Helberg criticized digital sovereignty — the push for homegrown AI infrastructure — as "backward and counterproductive" and "synchronized mediocrity," while the EU simultaneously touted digital sovereignty following the Anthropic decision
- UAE assistant foreign minister Omran Sharaf said it's "too early to tell" what export control decisions will mean for the country's goal of "strategic autonomy through international collaboration with trusted partners"
Why it matters: The U.S. faces a narrowing window to make American AI the global standard: 35 countries signed Pax Silica, but China's free and increasingly capable models are winning Global South adoption while the EU publicly hedged with digital sovereignty language. If cheap Chinese models become embedded in developing-world infrastructure, Washington loses the interoperability leverage that underwrites its tech alliance strategy.
