The New Great Game is increasingly being played through technology

By Alina Vey, 23 September 2026

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Artificial intelligence is often discussed as a technological revolution.

But increasingly, it is becoming something else as well: a question of power.

As the United States and China prepare for a meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Washington on 24 September, artificial intelligence has emerged alongside trade and critical minerals as one of the issues surrounding the relationship between the world’s two largest economies. Ahead of the meeting, US officials have also proposed a mechanism for notifying China about significant AI incidents that could have national-security implications.

The significance of this development extends beyond the meeting itself.

It raises a much larger question:

What happens when the technology shaping the future also becomes an instrument of geopolitical power?

That question sits at the heart of a wider transformation in international affairs — one that I explore in my book The New Great Game: Power, Technology, and the Struggle for the Twenty-First Century.

AI is no longer simply a technological issue

For much of the digital revolution, artificial intelligence was primarily discussed in terms of innovation, productivity and economic opportunity.

That description is becoming increasingly incomplete.

Advanced AI depends upon an ecosystem extending far beyond software. It requires data, computing power, advanced semiconductors, data centres, energy and sophisticated infrastructure. Those capabilities are unevenly distributed across the international system.

This means that the development of AI is becoming connected to questions traditionally associated with national power.

Economic competitiveness.

Technological independence.

National security.

Industrial capacity.

Information.

Strategic influence.

And increasingly, governance.

This is one of the arguments I develop in The New Great Game. In the chapter “Artificial Intelligence and National Power,” I examine how AI is moving beyond the boundaries of technological innovation to become a strategic asset in its own right.

The question is no longer simply who can invent the most sophisticated technology.

It is increasingly about who can develop it, deploy it, control the infrastructure behind it — and ultimately influence the rules under which it operates.

The infrastructure beneath artificial intelligence

There is a tendency to think of AI as something that exists primarily on screens: algorithms, applications and increasingly sophisticated models.

But beneath those systems lies a much more physical world.

AI requires processors.

It requires semiconductor manufacturing.

It requires enormous quantities of computing power.

It requires data centres and cloud infrastructure.

And all of this requires energy.

This is why the geopolitical significance of AI cannot be separated entirely from the wider competition over technological supply chains.

In The New Great Game, I examine these connections across several chapters. Strategic technology, semiconductors and data are not treated as isolated subjects, but as interconnected components of an emerging system of power.

The semiconductor industry is particularly important because advanced computing depends upon access to increasingly sophisticated chips and the infrastructure required to manufacture them.

Data presents another dimension.

As AI systems become more capable, access to data becomes increasingly significant to technological development, economic competitiveness and strategic capability.

The result is that what may initially appear to be a technological question can quickly become a question of economics, supply chains and national security.

A dispute over technology can become a dispute over trade.

A dispute over trade can become a dispute over supply chains.

A dispute over supply chains can become a question of strategic dependence.

And beneath all of these lies a deeper question:

Who controls the technologies upon which future power depends?

The United States and China

The emerging US–China relationship provides one of the clearest examples of this transformation.

Both countries are major forces in the development and deployment of artificial intelligence, while their technological ecosystems are increasingly connected to questions of national security and strategic competition.

Ahead of the Trump–Xi meeting, US and Chinese officials have been discussing AI alongside trade and critical minerals. The United States has also proposed an AI incident notification mechanism intended to improve communication over serious incidents that could affect national security.

The development is interesting because it illustrates a central paradox of the new technological competition.

The same countries can be competitors in technological development while also having an interest in preventing certain forms of technological risk from escalating.

Competition does not necessarily eliminate the need for communication.

In some circumstances, competition may make communication more important.

Artificial intelligence introduces risks that do not necessarily stop at national borders. AI-enabled cyber operations, failures involving critical systems, malicious uses of advanced models and other high-impact incidents could have consequences extending beyond the country in which they originate.

This creates a new strategic problem.

How do competing powers manage technologies that are simultaneously instruments of national advantage and potential sources of shared risk?

Competition and cooperation

The history of international relations contains many examples of competitors cooperating in specific areas while continuing to compete elsewhere.

Artificial intelligence may produce a similar dynamic.

The United States and China may compete intensely over technological leadership while simultaneously recognising that certain AI-related risks are difficult to manage unilaterally.

That creates a new form of strategic complexity.

The central question is no longer simply:

Who will develop the most powerful AI?

It is also:

Who will establish the rules governing how powerful AI is developed and used?

That distinction matters.

Technological leadership and technological governance are related, but they are not identical.

A country may possess advanced technological capabilities without necessarily determining the international standards, institutions or norms that govern those capabilities.

Conversely, those who influence standards and governance can exercise considerable influence over the technological environment even when they do not control every part of the technology itself.

This is why the geopolitical significance of AI extends beyond the race to build increasingly capable systems.

The competition is also about infrastructure.

It is about standards.

It is about regulation.

It is about data.

And it is about the political assumptions that underpin the technologies themselves.

The governance question

This is where the question becomes larger than artificial intelligence.

In The New Great Game, I devote a separate chapter to Technology and Governance because technological competition is ultimately also a competition over the rules surrounding technology.

AI raises questions that cannot be answered by engineers alone.

Who should be accountable when an AI system causes significant harm?

How should governments balance innovation and regulation?

Who controls sensitive data?

How much technological sovereignty should states seek?

What standards should govern increasingly powerful systems?

And how should countries cooperate when the technologies involved are simultaneously commercial, strategic and potentially security-sensitive?

These are not merely technical questions.

They are questions about political authority and the organisation of society.

The answer to them could influence the international system just as profoundly as the technology itself.

A new dimension of geopolitical power

This is perhaps the most important transformation.

For centuries, geopolitical power was largely understood through territory, military strength, population, economic resources and access to strategic geography.

Those factors remain important.

But the twenty-first century is adding new dimensions.

Data.

Computing power.

Semiconductors.

Artificial intelligence.

Cyber capabilities.

Digital infrastructure.

Technological standards.

The ability to innovate.

The ability to govern technological change.

These are increasingly becoming components of national power.

This is the broader argument running through The New Great Game.

The new great game is not simply a contest between states over territory.

It is a multidimensional competition involving power, technology, economics, information, resources, security and governance.

AI brings many of these dimensions together.

It depends upon data.

Data depends upon infrastructure.

Infrastructure depends upon energy and supply chains.

Advanced AI depends upon computing power and semiconductors.

Technological leadership influences economic competitiveness and national security.

And the growing power of these systems raises questions about governance and international stability.

Technology, in other words, is no longer merely something geopolitics uses.

Technology is increasingly becoming one of the arenas in which geopolitics itself is conducted.

The New Great Game

The original “Great Game” was associated with nineteenth-century competition for influence and strategic position across Central Asia.

The twenty-first-century version is fundamentally different.

It is not simply a contest for territory.

It is multidimensional.

It encompasses economics, technology, information, resources, supply chains, finance, security and competing visions of governance.

Artificial intelligence brings these elements together in a particularly striking way.

The technology itself matters.

But so do the chips required to run it.

The data required to develop it.

The energy required to power it.

The infrastructure required to deploy it.

The regulations governing it.

And the geopolitical relationships determining who has access to each of those components.

This is why AI belongs within the framework of the New Great Game.

It is not a separate technological story running alongside geopolitics.

It is becoming part of the architecture of geopolitical power itself.

The question ahead

The most important question may therefore not be whether artificial intelligence will transform geopolitics.

It increasingly appears that it already is.

The more difficult question is what kind of geopolitical system will emerge as a result.

Will technological competition produce greater fragmentation?

Will rival powers establish mechanisms for managing shared risks?

Will international institutions adapt quickly enough?

Will technological standards become another arena of strategic competition?

And perhaps most importantly:

Who will govern the technologies that increasingly shape the distribution of power?

This is the question explored more fully in my recent essay, Who Will Govern the Age of AI?, and it is also one of the central themes running through The New Great Game.

The answer will not be determined by artificial intelligence alone.

It will depend upon governments, institutions, companies and societies — and upon the choices they make about how technological power is developed, distributed and governed.

The new great game is therefore not simply a race to build the most advanced machines.

It is a struggle over the technological foundations of the future international order.

And artificial intelligence may be one of the places where that struggle becomes most visible.

**The question is no longer whether technology will shape geopolitics.

The question is who will shape the technology — and, ultimately, who will shape the future order built around it.**