AI and Nationalism

A little-known company from the USA called OpenAI almost a year ago set a bar for generative artificial intelligence. ChatGPT had the fastest user takeup in history, and people and organizations across the domain were buzzing about its human-like ability.

But it’s not the only game in town or planet, other countries and their tech companies are working on their large language models (LLM).
The advance that initially looked like an advance for all humankind is now brewing as a tool for geopolitical advantage.

So the usual suspects America and China are leading from the front, and then everyone else is playing catchup. Various big tech companies now have their LLMs. In the Middle East Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia use China’s state-capitalist approach. On Nov 28, 2023, they launched a state-backed company called AI-71 and have plans to spend billions.

Mistral the Fench AI company and Germany are not that behind either. India’s Sarvam which raised a whopping 41 million dollars are working on LLMs focusing on the Indian language as it has a different script.

If we look from a tech angle all looks the usual but geopolitically speaking: Can America maintain its dominance if the field keeps expanding at this rate?

Nvidia is a US-based semiconductor manufacturer giant which specialises in AI chips.

• President Joe Bided’s administration has leveraged this control over such companies to intact brutal export control over these AI chips and chip-making equipment to adversaries
• If other countries are able to replicate this chip supply chain they stand a much better chance of staying competitive
• USA is also trying to bring back other parts of the chip supply chain, predominantly manufacturing
• Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is setting up a fabrication unit(FAB) in Arizona, using US taxpayers money

What is China’s AI industrial strategy?

In 2021 and 2022 it has spent nearly 300 billion dollars to recreate its chips supply chain.

• This is for both AI cutting-edge chips and older generations. Hence protecting them from USA sanctions
• They are pumping a lot of money into chip makes like HUAWEI and SMIC as they are China’s contributor in chip manufacturing as they supply even to NVIDIA
• Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is also investing a lot of money into the venture capitalist market using guidance funds

How are other countries dealing with this growing AI nationalism?

Except for the last few waves of nationalism in technology, the world has always been dependent on the USA. Be in MS Office, Gmail, American cloud companies, Social media companies and so on.

• China is the only exception because they shut all these organizations
• The European and Asian governments want to be different when it comes to AI
• Britain, France, Germany, India, Saudi Arabia and UAE have promised to spend 40 billion dollars on semi-conductor companies, AI firms and chip supply chain

Saudi and UAE governments have spent a a few 100 million dollars last year for buying specialised AI chips from NVIDIA.

• They are also poaching talented professors from the US and Europe
• Interestingly UAE is using national data sets of education and healthcare for further training its LLMs
• France and India are also doing things similar to UAE and Saudi

Mistral’s (private French AI company) CEO in a recent interview stated that the French government is quite cooperative in sharing government data for fine-tuning the LLMs

• SARVAM, India’s private AI company is in talks with Indian government to access India Stack for sharpening LLMs

Basically governemnts are leveraging both money and data for gaining an advantage over other nations

Interestingly most of the above countries are not looking for global dominance, but technology sovereignty instead.

• For uses where sharing of data abroad might be a risk like the military or other heavily regulated sectors
• Broader risk is a waste of money, as the technology sector has always been a high-risk high reward plot
• More money will defiantly attract more talent and innovations in the AI sector in general
• On the flip side, it will also fragments and limits cross country and global collaboration

So share your comments will this rapid AI progress be good for the world or not?

If you enjoyed this poem help others find it by holding the 👏 button until the heavens drop. You can give up to 50 👏