Visions of Sovereign AI

Nations that control advanced AI systems will shape economic competitiveness, military capability, and the terms on which governments function for decades. The asymmetries stemming from unequal access to frontier AI - and the dependencies arising from concentrated control over its inputs - have elevated AI to the center of great-power competition.

Visions of Sovereign AI is a comprehensive asset-level, cross-country analysis of AI sovereignty. The report profiles 12 countries and blocs across six supply chain segments (energy, compute, chips, data, models, and critical minerals) and evaluates each country's autonomy (control over AI capabilities) and resilience (the ability to sustain those capabilities amid shocks).

Download the new report by Joshua Brause and Nikhil Mulani

What we found

AI sovereignty is not binary. Our analysis identifies a spectrum ranging from fully sovereign (the U.S. and China), through partially sovereign (South Korea, Japan, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, UAE), to blocs and states beginning to reduce dependence (EU, UK), and those that remain largely dependent (Israel, Singapore, Australia).

Chokepoints define the global supply chain: ASML's 100% monopoly in EUV lithography, TSMC's dominance in advanced logic manufacturing, the Korean duopoly in high-bandwidth memory, and China's control over critical minerals processing. No single nation can escape these interdependencies.

Both the U.S. and China offer partner countries what we term "vendor-chaperoned sovereignty": the promise of AI capability under conditions that embed dependence on the provider's ecosystem. China bundles financing, compute infrastructure, cloud services, and application platforms into integrated packages. The U.S. has historically exported components rather than integrated solutions, creating friction that Chinese competitors exploit. The contest over which ecosystem partner countries lock into is being decided now.

What we recommend

U.S. strategy should pursue two parallel objectives. First, consolidate full-stack sovereignty at home by closing remaining gaps in energy infrastructure, high-bandwidth memory, advanced packaging, and critical minerals processing.

Second, convert existing policy tools, including EO 14320, the American AI Exports Program, and Pax Silica, into operational mechanisms that make the U.S.-anchored version of vendor-chaperoned sovereignty more attractive, secure, and scalable than the alternatives.

Specific recommendations include designating certified full-stack integrators for the American AI Exports Program, creating a $25 billion DFC-EXIM AI Bridge Facility for partner nation infrastructure, establishing a $50 billion Pax Silica Investment Vehicle seeded by allied sovereign wealth funds, and tying chip export authorizations to Pax Silica membership to convert the coalition from a diplomatic gesture into an operational trade mechanism.

The decisions that governments make over the next one to two years — about procurement, infrastructure, alliance commitments, and export policy — will be pivotal in determining how AI impacts the geopolitical landscape.

The frontier AI supply chain is a priority area at Augur. Subscribe to keep up with our future updates on these topics and drop us a note if you or your organization are interested in working together.