From Silicon Valley to Shenzhen, a new digital curtain is descending across the world.

The next Cold War may not be fought over nuclear arsenals. Its strategic assets are energy, rare minerals, algorithms and talent. Washington now openly speaks of "winning the AI race"; Beijing argues that AI should be developed as a global public good. Between them sits most of the world, facing a question more consequential than which chatbot to use: whose technological ecosystem will shape its economic sovereignty?

This rivalry is real, but the Cold War analogy is incomplete. The US and China are competing for technological advantage and diplomatic influence. Yet they remain embedded in a global semiconductor system that runs through Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and the Netherlands, while private companies exercise power once reserved for states. This is less a return to the 20th century than the birth of a new form of techno-geopolitics.

The contrast between the two governance models is increasingly clear. The American approach is market-led, investment-heavy and deliberately deregulatory. President Donald Trump's AI Action Plan prioritises faster innovation, domestic infrastructure and the export of "full-stack" American AI to allies and partners. The rationale behind this is that technological leadership produces economic and military power, and global adoption of American systems extends that........

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