Geopolitics in the Age of AI - China and the Geopolitics of AI

Artificial Intelligence has become the central arena of US-China strategic competition, but the public debate — fixated on which country’s frontier model tops the latest benchmark — misses where the contest is actually being decided. This talk maps the layers that matter: compute and semiconductor supply chains, the export control regime and its mounting unintended consequences, and the industrial ecosystems that determine who deploys AI at scale. It examines how China’s AI sector has adapted under US restrictions — the surge of open-weight Chinese models in global adoption, Huawei’s advanced packaging workarounds, and Beijing’s countermoves on critical materials and state-directed capital. For policymakers, the uncomfortable finding is that several US controls are producing the opposite of their intended effects: accelerating Chinese substitution, eroding the market position of allied firms, and ceding influence over the global AI stack. The talk closes with the emerging third dimension of the relationship: AI safety and governance. In the wake of the first US-China dialogue on frontier model governance, it assesses whether Beijing’s rapidly maturing domestic safety-evaluation infrastructure represents a genuine basis for cooperation, a bid for standards-setting influence, or both — and what a realistic agenda for engagement looks like when the two countries are simultaneously racing and talking. Drawing on recent fieldwork in China, the talk offers a framework for judging which interventions actually work — and which are strategic self-harm dressed up as toughness. This dialogue will be moderated by CMIST Director Audrey Kurth Cronin. Doors open at 4:30 p.m.; refreshments served * Seating in the Grand Room is reserved for registered guests on a first-come, first-served basis. An overflow room will be available for viewing, also first-come, first-served. Once registration is full, walk-ins will be directed to the overflow room. Late-arriving registered guests may b