Abhishek G BhayaThe day after Donald Trump’s return to the White House, a full-page ad in The Washington Post made a stark declaration: “Dear President Trump, America must win the AI war.”
The sponsor? Alexandr Wang, the 26-year-old founder and CEO of Scale AI, an AI data company deeply embedded in the US military-industrial complex.
The timing and the wording left little doubt—Washington sees AI not as a tool of collaboration but as an arena of geopolitical confrontation.
About a month later, on February 23, that sentiment was on full display at the opening of Web Summit Qatar 2025 in Doha, where Wang faced probing questions from Axios journalist Felix Salmon during a session aptly titled "The Global AI Race."
It was a rare moment of direct exchange in front of an audience that was neither American nor Western and largely sceptical of Wang’s vision of an AI race between the US and China.
When Salmon asked for a quick show of hands on whether the audience agreed with Wang that America must win the AI war, only two hands went up—while the vast majority raised theirs in disagreement.
With over 1,500 startups from 90 countries, Web Summit Qatar 2025 is the largest international gathering of its kind in the Middle East, according to the organisers.
Earlier in the day, Qatar inked a five-year agreement with Scale AI to deploy AI-powered tools and training aimed at enhancing government services in the Gulf state.
Wang’s vision: An AI arms race
Wang wasted no time framing AI as a battlefield, citing a Chinese government document from 2017 that outlines Beijing’s ambitions in AI.
“The Chinese see this as an opportunity to leapfrog,” Wang insisted, repeating a familiar US narrative that paints China as an aggressive actor in AI development.
Washington has imposed sweeping sanctions on China’s access to advanced semiconductors, restricted American firms from investing in Chinese AI companies, and even pressured allies to cut off Beijing from crucial AI supply chains.
The Pentagon has funneled billions into AI-driven warfare initiatives, and companies like Scale AI have positioned themselves at the heart of that effort.
What exactly is the war about?
Felix Salmon challenged Wang’s rhetoric. “So, you call it a war—an AI war. What exactly is America fighting for?” he asked.
Wang sidestepped the question, focusing instead on technological dominance. “Nearly every country and company in the world will likely build their AI systems on either a US or a Chinese technology stack,” he said, implying that the world must choose sides.
He presented the competition vaguely in binary terms—democracy versus authoritarianism, US versus China.
But Salmon didn’t let the framing go unchallenged. “We all remember the Snowden revelations,” he reminded the audience.
In 2013, American whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked classified documents from the National Security Agency (NSA) revealing global surveillance programmes run by the US agency, the Five Eyes alliance, and with the cooperation of telecom companies and European governments, sparking a debate on national security and individual privacy.
“They showed us that if you’re building on American technology, the US government likely has access to your data. If you’re building on Chinese technology, the Chinese government might have access. So, if you’re a country in the Middle East, Europe, or Africa, do you really have a good option?” asked Salmon.
Wang dismissed the concern, arguing that US technology was simply better and more aligned with “free speech” values.
AI's Sputnik moment: China's DeepSeek chatbot shakes tech market
DeepSeek: A challenge to US AI hegemony
While the US frames AI as a battleground, China has made rapid advancements in the sector in recent years. One of the most striking examples is the recent emergence of DeepSeek, a cutting-edge AI model developed by a Chinese firm.
Unlike US giants like OpenAI, Meta, and Google, which operate with massive funding and resources, DeepSeek was built at a fraction of the cost yet delivers competitive results. This development has rattled Silicon Valley, intensifying fears that China is breaking through US dominance in yet another critical field.
The success of DeepSeek underscores a key reality: AI innovation is not a zero-sum game. The emergence of competitive models outside the US is a natural evolution of global technology development.
US rejects multilateral AI cooperation
Yet, instead of embracing this multipolar and multilateral AI landscape, Washington continues to escalate tensions, feeding the very AI war it claims to be defending against.
Just recently, at the Paris AI Summit, the US and its closest ally, the UK, were the only two countries that refused to sign the Paris AI Declaration—a global effort to establish AI cooperation and prevent its misuse.
The document – signed by over 60 countries including China, India, and France – is aimed at setting ethical guidelines for AI development and ensuring that the technology serves humanity rather than military ambitions.
Who benefits from an AI War?
Salmon’s questions forced Wang to acknowledge the stakes. “Technology has always been deeply linked to national security,” Wang admitted, invoking his upbringing in Los Alamos, New Mexico—the birthplace of the atomic bomb.
The reference was telling. Just as nuclear technology once transformed warfare, AI is now being framed in similar terms. And just as Washington dictated the global nuclear order, it now seeks to dictate the AI landscape.
The audience in Doha was not convinced. This was not a room of Pentagon strategists or Silicon Valley investors. The audience included a large number of people from regions that have long been caught in the crossfire of great power struggles.
They have seen how Washington’s rhetoric about security and democracy often masks its real objective: maintaining dominance at all costs.
Wang may have come to Qatar to sell the idea of an American-led AI future, but what emerged from the conversation was something far more revealing: the US is not just competing in AI—it is weaponising it.
