Washington Said Pick an AI Side. Kazakhstan Picked Both

By Daniel Rao

Washington has finally said the quiet part out loud: countries in its AI club cannot also play for the other team. The trouble is that the country best placed to test that threat has already joined both clubs — and it is not apologising. Kazakhstan, a nation of about 21 million people sitting on the minerals and cheap power the AI age runs on, spent this summer signing up with Washington and Beijing in the space of three weeks. If the United States wanted a demonstration of how little leverage an ultimatum carries when you are not the only shop in town, Astana just gave it one.

Photo: Astana, Kazakhstan, photographed in 2013. The capital now sits between two AI blocs — Washington's Pax Silica and Beijing's World AI Cooperation Organisation. Photo: Anton Yefimov / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY).

The ultimatum, in one sentence

The warning came from the US State Department, and it did not leave much room for interpretation. "Countries can't be trusted partners in Pax Silica while substantively engaging in initiatives that advance a competing vision for super intelligence," the department said, using the Trump administration's new preferred term for AI. Pax Silica, the American-led pact for securing semiconductor, AI and critical-mineral supply chains, has China as its implicit target — Washington is not coy about that, even when it does not name Beijing in the sentence.

The warning fits the pattern of Trump's AI policy so far: frame the contest as a race with one winner, then make the allies choose. President Donald Trump insisted last month that "whoever wins AI, wins." Behind the slogan sits a concrete grievance — US officials and AI companies accuse China of large-scale "distillation," extracting capabilities from frontier American models. Beijing rejects that flatly, and says the United States is pursuing an AI monopoly while restricting China's access to the world's most advanced chips and chipmaking machinery. Both sides, in other words, accuse the other of rigging the game. The countries in the middle are the ones being asked to pay for the argument.

The country that refused to choose

Kazakhstan is the rare case that has tried to have it both ways in public, on the record, within a single summer. Just three weeks after its AI minister, Zhaslan Madiyev, visited Washington in June to join the US group working to strengthen AI supply chains, he headed to Shanghai for a signing ceremony making the Central Asian country a founding member of China's initiative to shape the global AI agenda. Being in Pax Silica means more technological partnerships, high-tech manufacturing jobs and a place in global AI supply chains. Being in China's World AI Cooperation Organisation alongside 28 other initial founding countries, including Pakistan and Russia, means, Astana hopes, a voice in setting regional and global AI standards too.

The economics explain the double membership better than any speech. Earlier this year Kazakhstan's government signed an investment deal worth up to $10 billion involving Nvidia to build a "data centre valley" in the country. Meanwhile, more Chinese companies are investing in Kazakhstan, and local officials say Chinese foreign direct investment reached a record $2.8 billion in 2025. Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in July to expand cooperation under China's Belt and Road infrastructure programme. This is not a country hedging out of indecision. It is a country with something both suitors want — rich critical mineral resources essential to AI development, and cheap electricity to power data centres, which have become politically fraught in the United States — and it knows it.

"Everyone is hedging," said Dana Masalimova, a former Kazakhstan diplomat and independent scholar and centre associate at the Kathryn W and Shelby Cullom Davis Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. "We don't want this binary choice," Masalimova said. Kazakhstan is benefiting from both US and Chinese investments, she said, but is in a "very precarious spot." That phrase is doing a lot of work. Precarious, because the day Washington decides its warning has teeth, the country with a foot in both camps is first in line for pressure from both directions.

The swing countries hold the cards

We checked both membership lists before writing this: Pax Silica, launched in December 2025 with seven founding signatories, now counts 24 signatories, while China's organisation launched with 29 founding countries beside Beijing. The numbers matter because they describe the real contest. Beijing needs to court third countries to build an alternative coalition, while Washington already has a powerful network of allies, said Kyle Chan, a fellow at The Brookings Institution's John L Thornton China Centre. That lends power to what he described as "swing countries" — the states whose minerals, power, ports or markets both blocs need, and who can therefore name a price.

Indonesia is the clearest example after Kazakhstan. Like Kazakhstan, it has resources vital for AI and other technologies, such as nickel and copper, and it has joined China's organisation while seeking to make the most of both AI powers. Indonesia wants to benefit from both, Mari Pangestu, Indonesian National Economic Council's vice chair, told reporters at a University of Hong Kong Business School event. "We should be able to be part of both, put it that way. And choose the best system." It is a short sentence, but it is the whole story in miniature: the customer, not the vendor, deciding.

The pattern repeats wherever you look. US AI firms are bringing investments to Singapore, where Anthropic is setting up its latest Asia office, and the city-state says it is also considering joining China's AI organisation. In Saudi Arabia, the AI startup Humain unveiled in September a platform built on an open model by a Chinese AI company — while the kingdom also has a deal with Nvidia to expand AI computing with its advanced chips. France, one of the most ambitious AI developers aside from the United States and China, is attempting to go its own way with its startup Mistral, whose new model, released this month, outperforms some advanced Chinese models. Japan is closely aligned with the United States on strategic and security issues, including advanced semiconductors, trusted AI and standards — but it will not reject the more affordable Chinese AI models for "lower-risk applications," said Takahiro Tsuchiya, a professor at Kyoto's University of Foreign Studies. Even the loyalists are keeping a side door open.

Why the blocs can't hold everyone

The uncomfortable truth for both capitals is that most countries cannot join this race as builders at all. For countries like the United Kingdom and Germany, which have substantial economic and military capacity but no self-developed powerful frontier AI models of their own, aligning with the United States may be vital for their access to data centres and chip deals with US companies, said Anton Leicht and Sam Winter-Levy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Essentially, their access to advanced AI systems "depends on the whims of policymakers in Washington and Beijing," they said, while those countries may have limited influence over AI's future. That is a bleak bargain to offer an ally: sign with us, and your AI future depends on our mood.

China's pitch, by contrast, is built on the one thing Washington cannot easily match — price and openness. Beijing's open-source approach allows countries to be less reliant on the United States, and China has been providing funding for developing countries to develop their own AI ecosystems, said Alberto Lemma, a research fellow at the think tank ODI Global. To date, China has provided official sector grants and loans for projects and activities that use or enable AI technologies in at least 77 low- and middle-income countries, according to the AidData research lab at William & Mary, a public university in Virginia. Some top recipients include Nigeria, Zambia, Ghana, Bangladesh, Senegal, Cameroon, and Kenya. Public perceptions are also changing: recent study results from Pew Research Centre have shown that people in middle-income countries are becoming more positive and trusting of China when it comes to AI and the technology's regulation.

China, meanwhile, has been closing the technology gap with the United States when it comes to chipmaking and advanced AI capabilities, but it still trails top US technological capabilities, at least for now. That "at least for now" is doing the heavy lifting in every capital in the swing belt. Countries are not choosing between a finished American product and a finished Chinese one. They are choosing between a present American lead and a Chinese offer that gets cheaper and better every year — and hedging between the two is, for most of them, the only rational strategy available.

Our take: the choice Washington is selling doesn't exist

Let us be blunt about what the State Department's warning actually demands. It asks countries that cannot build frontier models to act as if they had already chosen a winner, in a contest where the two finalists are still changing shape, and where the penalty for choosing wrong is being cut off from the technology that will run their economies. That is a shoddy bargain dressed up as loyalty, and the swing countries know it — which is why they keep answering ultimatums by signing the other bloc's paperwork as well. Washington's warning will not stop hedging. At best it will teach the hedgers to be quieter about it, and at worst it will push the countries America most needs into Beijing's arms by making the American offer feel like a threat. The irony is sharp: in Washington's "shut up and build" turn, the administration told its own AI sceptics to stop talking and get on with it. The swing countries have taken the advice literally — they are building, with whoever will sell them the tools.

All things considered, many countries "don't want to pick a side ... because there are advantages and disadvantages to each technology stack," said Aalok Mehta, director of the Wadhwani AI Centre at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. Most countries may eventually lack a good option since they cannot compete on building AI frontier models, but "every country in the world in some way or another is thinking about AI sovereignty," he said. After all, "maybe no other country than the US and China can really build these very large, powerful models." If Mehta is right — and the membership lists suggest he is — then the blocs are not the future of AI governance. They are a waiting room, and the countries inside it are already shopping for the exit.

What to watch

The warning is only words until Washington acts on it. Three tests will show whether it means anything. First, whether the State Department names a country, or quietly cuts one out of a chip deal, for its WAICO membership — an enforcement step it has so far avoided. Second, whether Singapore, the most watched fence-sitter in Asia, joins China's organisation after already hosting Anthropic's newest office. Third, whether France's go-it-alone path with Mistral becomes a template for other mid-size powers, or a cautionary tale about the cost of independence. And behind all three sits the question China's push to take its AI global keeps raising: when the cheaper, open model is good enough, how long does the ultimatum survive contact with a procurement budget?

Frequently asked questions

What is Pax Silica?

A United States-led international initiative, launched in December 2025, focused on securing supply chains for semiconductors, artificial intelligence and rare earth elements. Its motto is "Securing the Silicon Supply Chain," it is coordinated by the US Department of State, and its founding declaration was signed by the United States, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Singapore, the United Kingdom and Israel. It now has 24 signatories.

What is the World AI Cooperation Organisation?

China's rival AI-governance initiative, which Beijing presents as open and inclusive. Kazakhstan joined as a founding member alongside 28 other initial founding countries, including Pakistan and Russia, and Indonesia has also joined. Beijing says AI "should not be owned by major countries."

Can a country be in both blocs?

Kazakhstan already is — it joined the US supply-chain group in June and China's organisation weeks later. Washington's State Department now says countries cannot be trusted Pax Silica partners while substantively engaging with a competing vision, but it has not yet publicly penalised any country for dual membership.

Which countries founded WAICO?

China launched the World AI Cooperation Organisation with 29 founding countries beside Beijing, including Pakistan and Russia. Indonesia has also joined. Kazakhstan was a founding member.

Sources: The Associated Press, via Business Standard syndication (25 October 2026) and carriers including Daily Sabah and BusinessMirror; US Department of State Pax Silica background; Brookings Institution and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace commentary as reported by AP; AidData research lab at William & Mary; Pew Research Centre findings as reported by AP. Quotes from Dana Masalimova, Kyle Chan, Mari Pangestu, Takahiro Tsuchiya, Anton Leicht, Sam Winter-Levy, Alberto Lemma and Aalok Mehta are as reported by The Associated Press.

Daniel Rao covers AI policy and US technology for TechPulse USA.