Washington to AI Partners: Choose Sides or Lose Access
US drafts letter telling AI coalition partners they must choose between Washington and Beijing's competing AI initiatives.
Washington is preparing to deliver a blunt message to its partners in the global artificial intelligence race: pick a side. A draft letter from the State Department warns that countries cannot simultaneously belong to the US-led AI coalition and Beijing's rival framework, according to a US official and an internal document reviewed by Varta Wire.
The letter is addressed to the 35 signatories of the US "AI Opportunity Statement," a June agreement that includes members of the Pax Silica initiative — a US-led effort to secure supply chains for AI models, semiconductors, and critical minerals. The draft urges countries to "choose deliberately," stating that membership in Pax Silica "cannot be held alongside membership in duplicative initiatives whose expectations conflict with our own."
The move comes as the technological rivalry between Washington and Beijing reaches a pivotal point. Chinese open-weight AI models have made rapid gains against proprietary systems from US companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, while Beijing weighs restrictions on overseas access to its leading models.
Kazakhstan has emerged as a flashpoint. It is the only known country to have joined both the US and Chinese coalitions, and it holds significant reserves of critical minerals essential for advanced technologies. Washington touted Kazakhstan in June as the first Central Asian nation to join Pax Silica.
The US official said the letter makes clear that "you can't have it both ways," adding that it is difficult to see how a country can credibly position itself as a trusted partner in one technology ecosystem while signing up for an initiative designed by China to advance a competing vision for AI.
China's embassy in Washington said the country opposes politicizing trade and technology issues, arguing that such actions "will only stifle global AI advances and serve no one's interests." The Kazakh embassy did not respond to a request for comment.
It remains unclear when the letter will be sent or whether it will be amended. The State Department declined to comment on what it called "purportedly leaked internal documents."