Ferguson, Klaassen and Schmidt outline in Foreign Affairs a race for an AI-based "empire"
Historian Niall Ferguson, researcher Lisa Klaassen and former Google chief Eric Schmidt argue in a Foreign Affairs essay that China and the United States wield a new kind of imperial power built on control of language models, semiconductors, energy and capital. According to the authors, that dominance sets the terms of global innovation and reproduces a center-periphery pattern. The text compares the situation with historical empires and warns about financial limits and the risk around Taiwan.
In 45 seconds
- The authors describe an imperial power that is no longer limited to territory but to control of knowledge: models, chips, energy and capital.
- China formalized its strategy in a 2017 State Council plan to lead global AI by 2030; the US case emerged from private capital.
- The essay points to mirror bottlenecks: China has electricity and rare earths but cannot make cutting-edge chips; the US dominates semiconductors and models but lacks minerals.
IASummary generated by artificial intelligence from a story by Infobae. It may contain errors: the original source prevails.




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