There’s a global consensus that standards are the key to the tech race.

Cameron F. Kerry, “Small yards, big tents: How to build cooperation on critical international standards,” Brookings Institute, 03-11-2024, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/small-yards-big-tents-how-to-build-cooperation-on-critical-international-standards/

The United States, China, and the European Union (EU), three major players in the global economy, all have recently identified standards as critical to their strategies for AI and other emerging technologies and have propounded strategies to increase their engagement accordingly. This paper analyzes these strategies in the context of the system of international standards development and examines both the need to improve the system to meet broad societal implications of AI and the ways government engagement can undermine bottoms-up, research-driven, and adaptive features that make this system an effective tool of technology policy. The paper concludes with a series of recommendations both for strengthening standards development and for avoiding harm.

At a recent of roundtable convened as part of a joint project of The Brookings Institution and Centre for European Policy studies (the Forum for Cooperation on AI), participants were asked in which of six international channels cooperation on AI is most needed. More than 40% identified international AI standards as the top priority. Indeed, standards help enhance safety, improve management, enable interoperability for business and consumer, and provide coherent frameworks that can improve compliance across national borders and differing systems of law and governance. The World Trade Organization (WTO) recognizes that differing national standards can operate as barriers to trade and encourages adoption of international standards.