Artificial intelligence is no longer merely a technological marvel; it is increasingly a form of geopolitical currency. For years, AI development was framed as a high-stakes race among tech giants and global superpowers to build artificial general intelligence (AGI)-a machine capable of performing any intellectual task a human can. OpenAI, DeepMind, and similar organizations have positioned themselves at the forefront of this race, while governments, particularly in the United States and China, have framed AI as a national security priority, mobilizing resources on a scale reminiscent of the Manhattan Project. In this view, AI is a form of hard power, accessible primarily to nations with vast computational resources and the capacity to leverage them for economic and military dominance.

Yet this perspective, while historically accurate, is rapidly becoming outdated. The launch of DeepSeek, a Chinese AI developer, earlier this year demonstrated that cutting-edge AI models no longer require massive financial backing or centralized infrastructure. DeepSeek’s competitively performing, lower-cost model challenged the assumption that only well-funded tech giants could lead in AI development. By open-sourcing their model, DeepSeek catalyzed a global wave of innovation, earning the moniker “the Robin Hood of AI democratization.”

This shift marks the beginning of a new era: one in which AI is not merely a tool of hard power but also an instrument of soft power. Where once the size and scale of a model determined its supremacy, today superiority hinges on integration, usability, and public trust. The rise of multipolar AI development is evident in recent launches worldwide: Alibaba’s Qwen and Moonshot AI’s Kimi in China, Japan’s Sakana AI, and Meta’s aggressive investment in its open-source Llama program in the United........

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