Tech Diplomacy Now: Dueling Visions for AI
Beijing pushes for global AI governance aligned with CCP values.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Tech Diplomacy Updates
Top News of the Week
Latest News
Technology Strategy and Policy
Artificial Intelligence
Telecommunications Networks and Infrastructure
Critical Minerals
Synthetic Biology
Quantum
Advanced Aerospace Technology
Semiconductors and Microelectronics
Energy and Climate
Opinion and Commentary
The Last Word
Krach Institute Hosts Trusted AI Roundtable with Diplomats from Central Asia and Azerbaijan
Last week, the Krach Institute—supported by Google—convened U.S. government officials and senior diplomats from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan for a high-level roundtable on advancing responsible and trusted AI across the region. The conversation explored how trusted, interoperable AI systems can boost regional economic growth through targeted investments in infrastructure, aligned regulatory approaches, and collaborative education initiatives. Participants underscored the importance of building a common framework to ensure AI is secure, transparent, and inclusive, highlighting the U.S.’s vital role in advancing innovation and partnership across the C5+1 and Azerbaijan.
Top News of the Week – Dueling Visions for AI
A week after the Trump Administration issued its AI Action Plan, Chinese Premier Li Qiang gave the keynote address at China’s World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai. He called for the creation of a global body that would govern AI.
Key Points:
The Chinese Premier obliquely criticized the American AI plan, calling for a global governance system, presumably controlled by Beijing, that would provide AI to the world in ways that would guarantee that the values of the Chinese Communist Party served as the foundation of artificial intelligence.
A globalized AI along the lines of what Beijing desires would hardwire anti-liberal tendencies and ensure that issues that the Party finds sensitive (like discussions of democracy, the rights of minorities, the status of Taiwan, and the legitimacy of the CCP) could not be touched by AI.
This provides an insight into the PRC’s strategy for competing with the United States. The Chinese Communist Party will portray American efforts to maintain leadership in AI as protectionist even as the Party provides massive subsidies and protection to its own companies in a bid to dominate the global AI market.
More on Background:
China releases AI action plan days after the U.S. as global tech race heats up – CNBC, July 26, 2025
China proposes new global AI cooperation organization – Reuters, July 26, 2025
China calls for global AI centre to avoid dominance of select few as US rivalry deepens – SCMP, July 26, 2025
China calls for global AI cooperation days after Trump administration unveils low-regulation strategy – The Guardian, July 26, 2025
China pitches global AI governance group as the US goes it alone – CNN, July 29, 2025
Global AI rivalry is a dangerous game – FT, July 28, 2025
Chinese Premier Li Qiang calls on countries to coordinate AI governance – CGTN, July 27, 2025
Latest News
Companies Welcome EU-U.S. Trade Deal as Least Bad Outcome – WSJ, July 28, 2025
Voters in Taiwan reject bid to oust China-friendly lawmakers in closely watched poll – Associated Press, July 26, 2025
Trump announces ‘massive’ trade agreement with Japan – CNN, July 23, 2025
Japan's PM vows to stay on despite bruising election loss – BBC, July 21, 2025
Trump Urges Intel’s CEO to Step Down, Calling Him ‘Conflicted’ – Bloomberg, August 7, 2025
Apple increases U.S. commitment to $600 billion, announces American Manufacturing Program – Apple, August 6, 2025
Trump plans 100% tariff on computer chips, unless companies build in US – AP, August 6, 2025
Technology Strategy and Policy
Cadence Design Systems Agrees to Plead Guilty and Pay Over $140 Million for Unlawfully Exporting Semiconductor Design Tools to a Restricted PRC Military University – Department of Justice, July 28, 2025
China proposes global body to govern artificial intelligence – FT, July 26, 2025
Why the EU’s International Digital Strategy Should Prioritize Repairing Transatlantic Cooperation – ITIF, July 25, 2025
Back to the Future: From Freeze-in-Place to Sliding Scale Chip Controls – Rhodium Group, July 21, 2025
Meta Says It Won’t Sign EU’s AI Code, Calling It Overreach – Bloomberg, July 18, 2025
Private Enterprise under Xiconomics: How Party Cells and Golden Shares Work – and What Europe Should Do – China Observers, July 17, 2025
The Case for an Economic Fusion Center to Prevent Strategic Surprise – James Tingle, WOTR, June 30, 2025
Artificial Intelligence
Chinese universities want students to use more AI, not less – MIT Technology Review, July 28, 2025
Chinese AI firms form alliances to build domestic ecosystem amid US curbs – Reuters, July 28, 2025
AI Has Improved Monsoon Forecast Accuracy in India by 20 Percent – ITIF, July 28, 2025
Huawei shows off AI computing system to rival Nvidia's top product – Reuters, July 26, 2025
China’s Overlooked AI Strategy: Beijing Is Using Soft Power to Gain Global Dominance – Foreign Affairs, July 25, 2025
Trump is all-in on AI sandboxes. Do they work? – Politico, July 24, 2025
SoftBank and OpenAI’s $500 Billion AI Project Struggles to Get Off Ground – WSJ, July 21, 2025
China could counter US tech curbs by engaging Global South on AI, analysts say – SCMP, July 20, 2025
Telecommunications Networks and Infrastructure
Comments to the FCC Regarding Modernizing Spectrum Sharing for Satellite Broadband – ITIF, July 28, 2025
Starlink-powered ‘T-Satellite’ service is now live on T-Mobile – The Verge, July 23, 2025
Taiwan firms unite to form next-gen cybersecurity alliance – Taiwan News, July 18, 2025
US Must Limit Intel-Sharing with Spain Over Huawei Concern, Cotton Says – Bloomberg, July 17, 2025
Critical Minerals
EV magnets by Japan's Proterial do not need heavy rare-earth metals – Nikkei Asia, July 22, 2025
China’s tightest rare-earths headlock is financial – Reuters, July 17, 2025
Apple to Buy Rare Earths From Pentagon-Backed US Producer MP – Bloomberg, July 15, 2025
Japan plans ‘world first’ deep-sea mineral extraction – Dawn, July 3, 2025
Tech titans Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates team up in race for minerals – Times of London, May 9, 2025
Synthetic Biology
Global pharma companies do record deals with Chinese biotechs – FT, July 22, 2025
Sustaining the Goose That Lays Golden Eggs: How to Continue Miraculous Biotech Advances – ITIF, July 15, 2025
Quantum
Could Metasurfaces Be the Next Quantum Information Processors? – Quantum Insider, July 26, 2025
AI Comes Up with Bizarre Physics Experiments. But They Work. – Quantum Magazine, July 21, 2025
Quantum Leaps: Dual remarkable quantum breakthroughs bring promise to error correction and faster computing – Building Our Future, July 7, 2025
Export Controls Accelerate China’s Quantum Supply Chain – RUSI, June 27, 2025
Advanced Aerospace Technology
This Was Supposed to Be the Year China Started Catching Up with SpaceX – NYTs, July 23, 2025
Has the Qianfan satellite network – China’s Starlink rival – run into trouble? – SCMP, July 23, 2025
Inside the race to find GPS alternatives – MIT Technology Review, June 6, 2025
Semiconductors and Microelectronics
Donald Trump freezes export controls to secure trade deal with China – FT, July 28, 2025
Letter to Commerce Secretary Lutnick about Nvidia H20 Exports – Americans for Responsible Innovation, July 28, 2025
The surprise winner in the U.S.-China tech war? Vietnam’s chip industry – Rest of the World, July 28, 2025
How Does Semiconductor Trade Work? – AEI, July 25, 2025
Nvidia AI chips: repair demand booms in China for banned products – Reuters, July 25, 2025
Nvidia AI chips worth $1bn smuggled to China after Trump export controls – FT, July 24, 2025
The final chip challenge: Can China build its own ASML? – Nikkei Asia, July 16, 2025
Energy and Climate
What’s next for advanced nuclear technology? – Utility Dive, July 14, 2025
Unlocking Global Geothermal Energy: Pathways to Scaling International Deployment of Next-Generation Geothermal – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, July 10, 2025
Small Modular Reactors for Nuclear Desalination and Cogeneration in the Permian Basin – Baker Institute for Public Policy, May 7, 2025
Opinion and Commentary
The AI Action Plan Puts the US Back at the Helm of Global AI Leadership – Hodan Omaar, ITIF, July 25, 2025
The False Case for Cooperation with China – Rob Atkinson, In The Arena, July 25, 2025
America Will Come to Regret Selling A.I. Chips to China – Ben Buchanan, NYTs, July 24, 2025
Winning the AI Race is More Complicated Than You Think – Colin Kahl and Jim Mitre, Geopolitics of AGI, July 16, 2025
Ambassador Jamieson Greer Remarks at the Reindustrialize Summit in Detroit, Michigan – Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, July 16, 2025
Toward an Abundance National Security Agenda – Kathleen Hicks and Wendy Anderson, National Interest, July 15, 2025
Europe’s Innovation Lethargy Should Be a Lesson of What Not to Do, Even for a Leading US – Justin Riggi, ITIF, July 14, 2025
Trump unleashes US nuclear renaissance with bold executive orders – Michael Kratsios, Fox News, May 24, 2025
The Last Word
“AI will be 10 times bigger and maybe 10 times faster than the Industrial Revolution.”
– Demis Hassabis, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Co-Founder and CEO of Google DeepMind
About: Tech Diplomacy Now
The Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue is the world’s preeminent trusted technology accelerator. As the leader of the new category of Tech Diplomacy, the Institute integrates technology expertise, Silicon Valley strategies, and foreign policy tools to build the Global Trusted Tech Network of governments, companies, organizations and individuals to accelerate the innovation and adoption of trusted technology and ensure technology advances freedom.