The A.I. Cold War

Unitree Robotics robot World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) china
Starting with the U.S. and China, various countries have now also entered the diffusion game: a push to disseminate these technologies within their own countries, and then spread them around the world. Photo: Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images
Ian Krietzberg
July 29, 2025

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Over the past week, governments from around the world have been practically tripping over themselves to unshackle the A.I. industry and unleash its ostensibly transformative powers upon their economies before someone else does it first. In some cases, they have entered into partnerships with private companies, like OpenAI, as part of an effort to inject some tech magic into federal agencies. In other cases, lawmakers are salivating over the prospect of replacing (or just cutting) some federal workers entirely.