US demands allies pick sides in AI war with China

The US State Department has drafted a letter to 35 countries, including close allies like Japan, Australia, and South Korea, urging them to abandon China’s newly formed 'World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization' and fully commit to the US-led 'Pax Silica' initiative. The draft letter, obtained by Reuters, frames the choice as binary: countries cannot be 'part of everything' and must 'choose deliberately' to avoid conflicting commitments. Kazakhstan is the only nation so far known to have joined both initiatives, triggering alarms in Washington over potential dual-use risks.

The escalation reflects the high stakes of the AI race, where Chinese open-weight models like Moonshot’s Kimi K3 are rapidly closing the gap with US proprietary systems from OpenAI and Anthropic. The Pax Silica framework, launched in 2025, focuses on securing AI supply chains, including semiconductors and critical minerals, while promoting joint projects and export controls. The US argues that dual memberships undermine these goals, particularly as Beijing weighs restrictions on overseas access to its leading AI models. China’s embassy condemned the move, calling it an attempt to politicize technology, while the US frames it as a necessary step to prevent adversarial access to critical AI resources.