Opinion: The AI cold war needs a nonaligned movement

Nations must cooperate as none can rival the US or China alone

7. Juli 2026 um 16:30 Uhr / Von Alicia Garcia-Herrero und Soumitra Dutta, Nikkei Asia

Employees check a server room of Samsung Networks' Telco Data Center at the headquarters of Samsung Electronics in Suwon on June 13, 2023. Bild: Jung Yeon-Je/AFP via Getty Images

Alicia Garcia-Herrero is senior fellow at Bruegel and chief economist for Asia-Pacific at Natixis. Soumitra Dutta is executive director with the SRM Group and a former professor and dean at Cornell University and the University of Oxford.

Washington's decision last week to give Anthropic 90 minutes to cut off two of its most capable AI models to every country on Earth except the U.S. has rightly been read as a warning -- The Economist called it a moment that has "granted America vast new power." But a warning only matters if it produces a plan, and the plans on offer amount to two unconvincing options: protest the new order, or try to outspend it.