WASHINGTON, September 22 — The United States is preparing to tell dozens of partner countries that they may have to choose between American and Chinese approaches to cooperation in artificial intelligence, as competition between Washington and Beijing intensifies across the technologies that underpin modern computing. A draft letter from the U.S. State Department, seen by Reuters, concerns the 35 countries that signed the American AI Opportunity Statement adopted in June.
It warns that those countries may not be able to participate simultaneously in the U.S.-led Pax Silica initiative and a competing Chinese initiative on artificial intelligence. The letter has not yet been sent to its recipients, and its contents may still change.
Two initiatives, two different designs
Pax Silica and the Chinese initiative, WAICO, should not be treated as fully symmetrical organizations. Pax Silica is primarily focused on the security and resilience of critical technology supply chains — from minerals and energy to semiconductors, computing infrastructure and artificial intelligence. Based on available information, WAICO places much greater emphasis on building national capacity, international AI governance, access to technology, workforce development and greater participation by developing countries in the emerging global AI ecosystem.
It may therefore be more accurate to describe them not as two identical AI blocs, but as two competing approaches to the emerging technological order. The American approach can be broadly described as securing the technology ecosystem.
The Chinese approach is more focused on expanding access to it. For countries in the Global South, that second approach is particularly attractive. This does not mean China is acting purely out of altruism.
By providing infrastructure, equipment, AI models, training and technology platforms, Beijing gains clear strategic advantages, and the wider use of Chinese technologies helps spread Chinese standards, products and institutional practices. Independent research on WAICO highlights precisely this dual nature.
On one hand, the organization may strengthen China’s international influence. On the other, it responds to a genuine demand from developing countries for training, infrastructure, access to open-weight models and a greater role in shaping international AI rules.
Washington’s strategic view
As AI becomes increasingly connected to semiconductor manufacturing, critical minerals, energy, data centers, computing capacity and national security, Central Asian countries will face growing pressure over their choice of technology partners. The United States increasingly views artificial intelligence not simply as an economic sector, but as a strategic technology ecosystem that includes advanced semiconductors, computing capacity, data centers, critical minerals, energy infrastructure, research networks, technology standards and investment.
From Washington’s perspective, a country’s participation in China-linked initiatives such as WAICO may therefore raise questions that go far beyond AI regulation itself. The American argument is that technology partnerships can create long-term dependencies and may potentially facilitate the transfer, spread or circumvention of restrictions on technologies that Washington considers strategically sensitive.
The main message behind the initiative appears to be that Washington sees participation in Pax Silica not simply as membership in another international forum, but as a strategic commitment.
The race enters a new phase
China is no longer simply catching up with the United States. It is competing with the U.S. in performance, cost and scale of deployment. According to Stanford HAI, in March 2026 the gap between the leading American and Chinese AI models was only 2.7%.
Since the beginning of 2025, models from the two countries have repeatedly exchanged the lead. China is strengthening its position through DeepSeek, Kimi K3, Qwen, GLM and MiniMax — open-weight models, rapid development and significantly lower operating costs.
Price may become one of the most important factors in the next stage of the AI race. The U.S. still has major advantages: advanced chips and computing infrastructure, capital and leading AI research laboratories. In 2025, U.S. developers produced 59 notable AI models, compared with 35 in China.
But China’s strategy is different: open models, low cost, industrial scale, government support and rapid deployment. The key question is therefore no longer simply who has the most powerful AI.
It is increasingly about who can make advanced AI cheap, accessible and widely available. That could determine not only technological leadership, but also geopolitical influence in the global AI race.
Central Asia’s room to maneuver
For Central Asia, this distinction is particularly important. The foreign policy model of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries has traditionally been based on diversification rather than exclusive alignment with a single external partner. Their goal is not so much to balance ideologically between the United States and China as to preserve room for maneuver and maximize access to technology, investment and infrastructure from multiple sources.
It is realistic to expect Washington to become increasingly demanding about where its partners stand on certain sensitive technologies. It is much less realistic, however, to expect Central Asian countries to abandon their multi-vector foreign policies and choose one technology ecosystem at the expense of the other.
What to watch next is whether the draft letter reaches its recipients in its current form, and how the 35 signatories of the June statement respond if it does.
