The world stands on the brink of global instability, the collision of AI and geopolitics will forever reshape the international order. Now is the only time to set standards for competition and cooperation between AI superpowers and increasingly capable middle powers

Escalating competition between the US and China, wars in Europe and the Middle East, and shifting global alliances have ushered in the most unstable geopolitical period since the Cold War. At the same time, we are experiencing what may be the most significant innovation since the internet: the rise of generative artificial intelligence. With the public release of ChatGPT on November 30, 2022, the defining geopolitical and technological revolutions of our time collided. Over the last 20 years, “traditional AI” has become pervasive, powering advertising algorithms, content recommendations, and social-media targeting. But its power and influence were largely shrouded and embedded within applications. Now, generative AI is front-and-center, with user interfaces that are commonplace, proficient, and clearly identifiable as machine-driven intelligence. Unlike previous technological revolutions, from the printing press to the internet, leaders in every capital and commercial center gained access to this tool at the same time, as ChatGPT became the fastest-adopted technology in history. While the technology’s future is uncertain, generative AI was nearly universally acknowledged as a paradigm-shifting innovation, not a fleeting trend or hype cycle. With widespread adoption and accelerating innovation, we have now entered a period we call the inter-AI years, when leaders in every sector are working to understand what generative AI will mean for them, and how they can take advantage of opportunities while mitigating risks. This simultaneity does not imply parity. Different countries and companies have diverse histories, contexts, capabilities, and risk tolerance when it comes to AI. ­Notwithstanding these differences, leaders have the same window of maximum flexibility to shape an AI-enabled future. This window will be brief – a few years at most – then views and strategies will harden, and norms, values, and standards will be embedded within the technology. While the technology will continue to progress, decisions made today will determine what is possible in the future. Countries will have devised their approaches and formed likeminded blocs, competition will increase, the costs of changing course will rise, and the available paths for companies and countries will be more determined. What will emerge is a generative world order. We are at the beginning of that order, and its future is uncertain. The long-term effects of technological revolutions are not made clear overnight – the Reformation did not immediately follow the invention of the printing press, and few could have predicted the positive and negative effects of social media in the early 2000s. But before long, the way we live and the nature of global politics will be shaped by generative AI. Which winners and losers will emerge? Will generative AI prove to be a zero-sum game, or create win-win scenarios? Will the problems that generative AI creates be solved by the very same technology, or will they prove to be intractable? Will companies or governments drive the future of AI? The relative nascency of this new node of AI innovation and the steep trajectory of improvement in generative AI models make these questions more momentous, and difficult to answer. We believe that this is the time to take stock of where we are, and to identify some of the inflection points that will shape our AI future. This paper takes up the key changes in the generative AI field over the last year in the domains of geopolitics, technology, and markets. We discuss what trends are emerging, what debates remain unsettled, and how the generative world order is being defined. AI and geopolitics Geopolitical competition is a constant. But the technologies that animate that competition are not. And while the United States, China, and Russia do not agree on many things, they all acknowledge that AI could reshape the balance of power. Today’s geopolitical rivals are putting AI at the center of their national strategies. In 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, “Artificial intelligence is the future not only of Russia but of all of mankind.” Five years later, Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping declared, “We will focus on national strategic needs, gather strength to carry out indigenous and leading scientific and technological research, and resolutely win the battle in key core technologies.” And, in 2023, US President Joe Biden summarized what AI will mean for humanity: “We’re going to see more technological change in the next 10 – maybe the next 5 years – than we’ve seen in the last 50 years…Artificial intelligence is accelerating that change.” Today, there are two AI superpowers, the United States and China. But they are not the only countries that will define the technology’s future. Earlier this year, we identified a category of geopolitical swing states – non-great powers with the capacity, agency, and increasingly the will to assert themselves on the global stage. Many of these states have the power to meaningfully shape the future of AI. There are also emerging economies that have the potential to reap the rewards of AI – if the right policies and institutions are established – and whose talent, resources, and voices are essential to ensure that the creation of a human-like intelligence benefits all of humanity.