On Tuesday, Vance told the assembled leaders the US would not relinquish its lead in AI, while also warning countries not to sign AI deals with “authoritarian regimes,” in a thinly veiled jab against China.
“Partnering with them means chaining your nation to an authoritarian master that seeks to infiltrate, dig in and seize your information infrastructure,” Vance said, referring to CCTV and 5G as previous examples where “cheap tech… [was] heavily subsidized and exported by authoritarian regimes.”
Among the priorities set out in the joint declaration signed by countries including China, India, and Germany was “reinforcing international co-operation to promote co-ordination in international governance.”
Such language put off the US, which did not agree on the terminology around multilateralism and international collaboration, said an official from one of the countries that signed the document.
The US also had concerns that Current AI, the foundation launched by France during the summit, would be used to funnel money to French-speaking countries, the official said.
Vance’s speech was “a 180-degree turnaround from what we saw with the Biden administration,” said Keegan McBride, a lecturer at the Oxford Internet Institute, who studies the geopolitics of AI.
The narrative around Macron’s summit was about pushing alternatives to the US-led drive to develop AI technologies. Following the launch of powerful open models from DeepSeek, Europeans had felt like they had a fleeting chance to compete in AI, said Frederike Kaltheuner, senior EU and global governance lead at the AI Now Institute, an AI research institute.
“Vance just dumped water all over that. [It] was like, ‘Yeah, that’s cute. But guess what? You know you’re actually not the ones who are making the calls here. It’s us,’” said McBride.
Additional reporting by Jim Pickard
© 2025 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved. Not to be redistributed, copied, or modified in any way.
