From Technological Leadership to the Geopolitical Architecture of Artificial Intelligence
By Javier
Surasky
Our AI power map now turns toward an unavoidable actor: the United States, a country that is home to some of the most influential companies in the global artificial intelligence ecosystem and seeks to turn its technological strength into strategic capacity, economic advantage, and normative power, amid strong internal swings over how AI should be treated.
Its main
strength lies in the way it brings together private innovation, critical
infrastructure, computing capacity, semiconductors, universities, federal
agencies, public procurement, defense, diplomacy, and export controls within a
single narrative: winning the global race for artificial intelligence, an
objective directly tied to several national areas, such as productivity growth,
and international ones: national security, international leadership, and the
definition of standards.
Since January 2025, U.S. federal policy has reorganized its priorities around the
removal of regulatory barriers, promoting faster public and private adoption of
AI, the construction of national infrastructure, and the international
projection of U.S. technologies, hardware, and standards: Executive Order
14179, of January 23, 2025, established as policy the goal of sustaining and
strengthening the global leadership of the United States in AI.
That
orientation was systematized in America’s AI Action Plan, presented in July
2025, which rests on three pillars: accelerating innovation, building U.S. AI
infrastructure, and leading international diplomacy and security in this field.
This expresses the idea that whoever has the strongest national AI ecosystem
will be able to influence global standards and capture economic and security
benefits.
The
relevance of the United States in the map of AI power is not limited to its
leading companies or its scientific capacity. To understand it fully, attention
must be paid to its effort to be the actor that orders the field worldwide,
mainly through the promotion of its own models and infrastructure, which has
also led it, paradoxically, to establish technological alliances with
international partners.
The
position of the United States in the AI ecosystem reveals one of its strongest
tensions: the country promotes a policy of accelerated innovation and global
leadership, but in doing so it creates a scenario in which infrastructure,
capital, talent, data, and computing power are concentrated in a small number
of actors.
In June
2026, that orientation was deepened through a new executive order on innovation
and security in advanced AI, which calls for working with the private sector to
modernize public and private systems, strengthen cyber defense, protect U.S.
intellectual property, and cultivate advanced AI capabilities, although it
clarifies that companies should not interpret this as prior authorization or
approval for the development, release, or distribution of new AI models,
including frontier models.
A central
element the country uses as an international “tool” is the control it exercises
over the global advanced semiconductor chain, which gives it enormous influence
over material access to chips, data centers, and manufacturing equipment
worldwide.
Using that
preponderance, the current U.S. government is pursuing a positioning strategy
that combines domestic promotion of infrastructure with export controls,
restrictions on certain end uses, license reviews for sales to China, rules on
supercomputing and semiconductor manufacturing, and possible tariffs on
semiconductors, manufacturing equipment, and derivative products.
Particularly
noteworthy in this regard is the control exercised by the Bureau of Industry
and Security (BIS) over advanced semiconductors and supercomputing capabilities
linked to China: in 2025 and 2026, it updated measures on advanced chips,
license reviews, and the prevention of diversion to the People’s Republic of
China. In that architecture, export controls function as a form of geopolitical
regulation of AI.
In global
AI governance, the United States is a leader that has clearly set itself, among
its priorities, the task of defining the conditions of possibility of the ecosystem as a whole.
Basic facts
- Since July 2025, the United States has had America’s AI Action Plan, organized around three pillars: innovation, infrastructure, and international diplomacy/security.
- Executive Order 14179, of January 23, 2025, established as federal policy the goal of sustaining and strengthening U.S. global leadership in AI and revoked previous policies considered obstacles to innovation.
- In April 2025, the Office of Management and Budget issued memoranda on the federal use of AI and the public procurement of AI systems, aimed at accelerating adoption across federal agencies while safeguarding civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy.
- NIST maintains the AI Risk Management Framework, published in 2023, as a voluntary framework for managing AI risks, and in April 2026, announced a concept note for a profile on trustworthy AI in critical infrastructure.
- In April 2025, a federal line of action was created on AI education for young people, literacy, teacher training, and workforce preparation.
- In June 2026, the White House explicitly linked advanced AI with cybersecurity, critical infrastructure, defense, intelligence, and the safe deployment of frontier models.
- In May 2025, the Department of Commerce announced the rescission of the previous administration’s “AI Diffusion” rule, while at the same time stating that it would strengthen export controls to chips and semiconductors globally.
- In January 2026, BIS revised its licensing policy for certain advanced chips destined for China, including Nvidia H200, AMD MI325X, and similar chips, to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis and subject to security requirements.
- The United States uses export controls on advanced semiconductors, manufacturing equipment, and supercomputing capabilities as national security instruments vis-à-vis China, administered mainly by the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security.
- The White House also activated measures on imports of semiconductors, manufacturing equipment, and derivative products, connecting chip policy with economic security, industrial resilience, and national capacity to sustain data centers and AI infrastructure.