Beneath the user-friendly face of artificial intelligence lies a fierce global contest for influence. From American dominance and China’s growing ambitions to strategic dependencies and Europe’s response, the geopolitical landscape is reshaping how data and AI are developed and deployed. Aurélien Duthoit, Sector Economist at Coface, shares key insights to help business leaders navigate growth in a rapidly evolving technological era.
Across the technology sector and beyond, artificial intelligence has become the central topic of discussion. New breakthroughs, expanding applications, and its impact on productivity and employment continue to generate intense attention.
With unprecedented levels of investment flowing into the sector, AI is increasingly emerging as a source of economic strength, industrial leadership and geopolitical influence. Geopolitical tensions are accelerating technological development, transforming AI and data into strategic assets. Behind the simplicity of a chatbot interface sits a vast ecosystem of infrastructure investments worth hundreds of billions of dollars, sophisticated financing mechanisms and highly concentrated value chains controlled by a limited number of global players.
AI is no longer just a matter of innovation or productivity. It has become an instrument of economic, industrial and geopolitical power,
says Aurélien Duthoit, sector economist at Coface.
1 – How secure is America’s position at the top?
After Nvidia, the most valuable publicly listed company in the world with a market value exceeding $2 trillion, both Anthropic and OpenAI have announced plans to go public in the coming months. The anticipated listing of Anthropic is already being described by many observers as the largest IPO ever undertaken. This further strengthens the competitive edge of US-based AI companies, which currently represent around 70% of the total value of the global AI financial ecosystem. The United States also maintains a dominant position in digital infrastructure, hosting half of existing global AI-related capacity and approximately 70% of all capacity currently under construction.
Whether in terms of financial valuation or infrastructure, US leadership is extremely strong. And when we look at the flows, everything suggests that this trend will only become more pronounced.
explains Aurélien Duthoit.
Yet this dominant position conceals a significant vulnerability. The United States remains heavily dependent on imported equipment and strategic components required to support AI development. This dependence has grown rapidly, multiplying several times over recent years. The contradiction is striking: how can a nation lead the world in AI while relying so heavily on foreign suppliers for essential hardware?
A new geopolitical reality is therefore taking shape. Countries can dominate software, capital and value creation without controlling every physical component underpinning the technology. For businesses, this growing fragmentation makes technology sourcing a strategic issue rather than a purely operational decision.
In return for their hegemony in the sector, we are seeing a strategic weakness in the US supply chains. The further down we go into the physical layer of this economy (not just microchips), the more apparent US vulnerability becomes.
The Americans are now investing significantly to reduce these dependencies, but the pace is not as fast as expected to truly rebalance the power dynamics.
notes Aurélien Duthoit.
2 – China-US technology rivalry: who will shape the future of AI?
Eighteen months ago, the 'DeepSeek moment' reminded the technology industry that success depends on more than simply building the most advanced language model. The true competitive advantage lies in balancing performance, affordability and implementation flexibility. China is responding with a distinctly different approach. Many Chinese AI models are released as open solutions, allowing organisations to deploy them within their preferred environments, including on-premises systems or through European hosting providers. This contrasts sharply with closed ecosystems that bundle software, services and infrastructure together.
By delivering capable models at a lower cost and with greater accessibility, Chinese companies are not necessarily aiming to dominate the market outright. Instead, they can limit the ability of US players to convert their technological lead into long-term global influence and financial advantage.
The current issue is no longer a question of who has the best technological models, but who offers the best quality-price ratio on the market.
For China, the geopolitical interest lies in reducing the ability of US players to turn their technological lead into a global rent. They are also reducing the geopolitical leverage the US could wield over the rest of the world.
Aurélien Duthoit.
3 – Europe: falling behind, but far from powerless?
In this new era where geopolitics and technology increasingly overlap, Europe faces important strategic choices. Key digital markets are becoming increasingly concentrated, with language models benefiting from network effects and cloud services driven by economies of scale. For organisations adopting AI, supplier concentration presents a growing risk. Europe currently trails global leaders in both AI models and critical components, reflecting broader structural challenges related to regulation, integration and strategic vision, as highlighted in the Draghi report.
Nevertheless, Europe still holds several critical positions within the AI value chain that could be leveraged more effectively:
- ASML in photolithography,
- Zeiss in optical inspection,
- Spea in electrical testing,
- Siltronic in silicon wafers.
Europe may also benefit from another major asset: the world's second-largest market, which provides significant negotiating power on the global stage.
For Europe and the businesses operating within it, four fundamental questions must still be answered:
- Which dependencies expose the greatest risks?
- How strategically important are they?
- What viable alternatives exist?
- What investment is required to switch suppliers or technologies?
One priority remains clear: organisations cannot afford to delay the adoption of emerging technologies, as the resulting productivity gains could play a crucial role in restoring competitiveness and profitability.
