Daijiworld Media Network - New Delhi

New Delhi, Aug 16: The United States is preparing to tell dozens of countries that they must choose sides in the artificial intelligence race with China, warning that countries joining Beijing's competing AI framework could be excluded from a US-led coalition, according to a US official and an internal draft reviewed by Reuters.

Washington launched the Pax Silica initiative last year to secure supply chains for AI models, semiconductors and critical minerals amid an intensifying technology rivalry with Beijing. Around two dozen countries have joined the initiative, including Kazakhstan, a key potential source of critical minerals that has also joined China's coalition, as well as close US allies such as Japan, Australia and South Korea.

A draft letter prepared by the US State Department is addressed to the 35 signatories of a US “AI Opportunity Statement” signed in June. The group includes members of the non-binding Pax Silica framework and other countries that have expressed a desire to align AI cooperation with Washington.

The US hopes that pressing countries to choose sides will limit China's access to resources needed to develop increasingly sophisticated AI systems, which could have significant military and economic applications.

In July, Chinese President Xi Jinping launched a rival “World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization”, promoting China's open-weight AI technology as a challenge to US influence over the rapidly developing sector.

Kazakhstan is the only country so far known to have joined both initiatives, raising concerns in Washington.

“To be part of everything is to be part of nothing. Signature of the Pax Silica Declaration is not merely a membership subscription, but a commitment,” the draft letter says, urging countries to “choose deliberately” on AI.

“It cannot be held alongside membership in duplicative initiatives whose expectations conflict with our own,” the letter says, without specifically naming China.

Reuters could not determine when Washington intends to send the letter or whether it could be amended before being sent. The draft was undated.

The US State Department declined to comment on what it described as “purportedly leaked internal documents”.

China's embassy in Washington said Beijing opposed the politicisation of trade and technology issues.

“Such actions will only stifle global AI advances and serve no one's interests,” an embassy spokesperson said.

The Kazakh embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

The Pax Silica agreement is aimed at encouraging US allies and partners to undertake joint projects and coordinate export controls, while ultimately reducing reliance on adversaries for critical minerals, AI models and the semiconductor chips that power them.

The US-China race for technological leadership has reached a pivotal stage, with Chinese open-weight AI models making rapid gains against proprietary systems developed by US companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic.

The rapid expansion of AI capabilities, including the ability of advanced systems to autonomously conduct hacking activities, has prompted a global reassessment of the technology's potential power and risks.

Beijing is also considering restrictions on overseas access to some of China's leading AI models, underscoring the growing tension between its ambitions in the global AI sector and its stringent national security agenda.

The US highlighted Kazakhstan in June as the first Central Asian country to join Pax Silica. Kazakhstan has significant reserves of critical minerals that are important for advanced technologies.

China has used its near-monopolies over several critical minerals as a retaliatory tool in the tariff war launched last year by US President Donald Trump, who has since intensified American efforts to source such minerals domestically and from allied countries.

Members of Pax Silica have access to shared investment opportunities in AI-related projects. Countries that signed the AI Opportunity Statement have also symbolically agreed to a “common purpose” and “shared vision” with the US, according to the statement published on the State Department's website.

US officials drafted the letter to make clear that countries “can't have it both ways”, a US official told Reuters on condition of anonymity because internal discussions on the issue are ongoing.

“It's difficult to see how a country can credibly position themselves as trusted partners in one technology ecosystem while simultaneously signing up for an initiative designed by China to advance a competing vision for AI,” the official said.