Ian Bremmer during a Bloomberg Television interview in London, UK on Oct. 7, 2026
The scramble for an edge in artificial intelligence (AI) among countries worldwide is unfolding as they release ever newer AI models, triggering concerns about a global arms race.
"I believe that the correct analogy for AI is not an arms race, but the financial marketplace," noted Ian Bremmer, Founder and President of Eurasia Group and Member of the Executive Committee of the UN High-level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence, in a recent exclusive interview with South.
A possible "Technology Stability Board" to govern AI
In an era of cutting-edge AI models springing up every day, Bremmer proposed creating a "Technology Stability Board" to identify the risks these models bring.
Citing the Financial Stability Board as an example, he noted that this international body, launched in 2009 after the global financial crisis, monitors and makes recommendations about the global financial system, bringing together independent central bank governors and technocrats who understand financial risks.
"When you have a massive economic recession, you've got monetary and fiscal tools. Whether you're the People's Bank of China, or the Federal Reserve System or the European Central Bank, you all understand and relate to each other," Bremmer noted.
In his eyes, that's what the world needs for AI. Similarly, a possible Technology Stability Board would be made up of a group of independent technocrats who have the ability to monitor and identify risks coming from AI models all over the world.
If they see something that potentially creates a systemic risk, they immediately surface and communicate it, so that the world can respond to minimize that risk, mitigate it and ensure it doesn't persist going forward.
"AI is something like the air around us. We all rely on it and can't shut it off. But systemic risks to its functioning can come from anywhere," Bremmer said. Therefore, people need a technocratic approach to ensure that AI continues to function as it is intended to.
"If you want to ensure that we as eight billion plus humans on this planet manage to thrive and do not blow each other up, we desperately need global governance on artificial intelligence. It needs to be the financial marketplace," he concluded.
It is imperative to provide funding for AI access in Global South
Despite AI's promise as a tool to improve global prosperity and accelerate development worldwide, policymakers and the public share concerns about its role in widening global inequality, given how unevenly many of its core inputs are distributed.
Only 32 countries host AI-specialized data centers, most of which are found in the Global North, while Africa and Latin America together account for just 3 percent of global AI compute capacity, according to a report from The New York Times last June.
As an enthusiast for technology, Bremmer acknowledged AI's role in helping accelerate the invention of new capabilities that will improve energy efficiency, healthcare and education.
"All of these are unprecedented and they are accelerating at present. I do believe that the only chance that on this planet we have of meeting or even exceeding the Sustainable Development Goals is by maximally harnessing new AI capabilities," he added.
Nonetheless, the member of the Executive Committee of the UN High-level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence also recognized the unpleasant fact: large swathes of Africa's population don't even have electricity, so they're obviously not going to benefit adequately from AI.
"What's urgently necessary is that you have to provide more money, a fund that will deliver direct access to AI for people from the Global South," Bremmer argued.
Otherwise, he projected, these countries will see their own opportunities and their own economies fall further behind those who are dominating the inventions and the use of these tools.
China, US could and should work together to avoid cyberattacks
AI technology is iterating faster than its governance, and this is true in both China and the US.
As countries avoid cooperation and governance on AI, kicking the can down the road, it becomes more likely that the world will face imminent AI crises over the misuse and misunderstanding of what these frontier models do and are capable of, Bremmer cautioned.
Warnings have been issued by top minds such as Bill Gates, Dario Amodei, Eric Schmidt and Demis Hassabis on these issues in the US and the West.
"When those crises occur, absent any substantive US-China cooperation or trust on the issue, the likely response in the US will be heavy, unilateral intervention, and will be making greater parts of the AI ecosystem integrated with the US military-industrial complex," Bremmer noted.
The US will come to see AI as a core component of national security, and therefore take a much more zero-sum approach toward China as opposed to win-win. "The longer the two sides are without strong efforts at substantive cooperation and governance, the greater the likelihood is that we end up in an AI cold war and an AI arms race."
Reporter | Zhang Ruijun
Photo | CFP
