Where Data Tells the Story
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The Race for AI Supremacy
Artificial intelligence has acquired the trappings of a great-power contest, and with it, the diplomacy of one. In December 2025 America launched Pax Silica, a coalition offering trusted partners privileged access to the chips, minerals and computing power that AI runs on. China answered in July 2026 with WAICO, a rival body open to almost anyone willing to sign, promising infrastructure financing and a seat at the governance table instead. Roughly ninety countries have now picked a camp.
The map that results is not a simple binary. Some choices reflect old alliances: Japan and Australia with Washington, Russia and Pakistan with Beijing. Others reflect what lies underground. Chile, sitting on the world's largest copper output and lithium reserves, has joined Pax Silica; Indonesia, the dominant source of nickel, sits with WAICO. A handful of states, Kazakhstan chief among them, have simply joined both, unwilling to trade dependence on one great power for dependence on another. Still others, from Vietnam to Saudi Arabia, remain on the sidelines, weighing which hand is worth playing.