AI Diplomacy: The Power Struggle of a New Era

When we hear the word diplomacy, most of us first think of foreign relations and contact between states. Yet today diplomacy has spread far beyond classic relations between governments.

Trade diplomacy, energy diplomacy, technology diplomacy, security diplomacy... The pace of technology now brings a further heading into view: AI diplomacy.

Throughout history, technological shifts changed more than how things were produced; they also reset the economic, military and political balance of power. The Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries was the best-known example. Roughly two centuries later we are in the middle of another shift, and this time its name is artificial intelligence.

A fair question follows: how "artificial" is artificial intelligence, really? Or are we now talking about a force too real to underestimate? Over the years, humanity opened its vast store of data to these systems, fed them with ever more of it, and built stronger computing infrastructure. In short, we have grown a system with our own hands.

Today AI is no longer a tool that merely carries out commands. From the economy to defence, from health to education, from intelligence to trade, it is turning into a strategic force that shapes decisions. A new field of diplomacy grows out of this.

What is AI diplomacy?

AI diplomacy is still an emerging concept in the international-relations literature, yet it is quickly finding a place in relations between states. Building strong AI does not end with having good software engineers.

Advanced systems call for many things at once: powerful GPUs and high-performance computing, large and meaningful datasets, serious energy capacity, semiconductor technology, data centres, skilled people and international research partnerships. No single state holds all of these at once and without limit.

As AI advances, countries grow more dependent on one another. One country may have advanced chips but not enough data. Another may hold large data resources yet lack the computing power to use them. A third may have real research capacity while depending on others for energy or capital. Diplomacy gains weight in a picture like this.

States no longer sign only trade or defence agreements. Data sharing, joint AI research, chip technology, computing infrastructure, data centres, cyber security and AI standards are now among the topics on the table.

In the past, oil, natural gas, sea routes and military technology were the main sources of a country’s strategic power. Today three new items join them: data, computing power and AI models. Countries with direct access to all three gain a clear edge in the race.

There is one more factor easy to overlook: diplomatic power. Not every country can build its own infrastructure alone. Those with strong relationships, strategic partnerships and a wide diplomatic network can stay in the race by reaching technology, data, capital and computing power.

For this reason, the AI contest will not belong to companies or engineers alone. It will become a new struggle for power that also tests the diplomatic capacity of states.

Before long, in weighing a country’s power, we will look not only at its army or its natural resources but also at the data it holds, the computing power it can reach and the diplomatic network it can build.

AI diplomacy is only beginning to take shape. In this piece I have drawn only the broad outline. In the essays to come I will keep looking, in more detail, at how it bears on data diplomacy, chip diplomacy, security policy, the defence industry and the new balance of power between nations.