They talk about picking sides, then buy from bothPlaying both sides of the U.S.-China AI “Cold War”

This month Saudi Arabia unveiled what it calls the world's most advanced Arabic-language AI model. The technology underneath came from MiniMax, a Chinese startup. The computing power was bought from Nvidia and other American companies.

Saudi Arabia is not alone in hedging.

Brazil cut the cheque in two

In August Brazil announced roughly $444 million of AI investment and split it almost down the middle: $255 million for a supercomputer in Rio de Janeiro built with Huawei and iFlytek, and about $189 million for a second machine it expects to buy from Nvidia.

The government's own words: do not depend on a single company, technology or country.

For most countries, technological sovereignty does not mean building everything at home. Competing at the frontier is prohibitively expensive, so they pick what to make and what to buy.

Washington's stick is losing its swing

The U.S. still holds cards where its technology is hard to replace, such as advanced chips and networking gear. But countries that want AI and cannot afford American systems are out of reach, and there Chinese open-source models dominate.

These choices are now tangled up with diplomacy. Egypt and Malaysia are both weighing Huawei bids; Malaysia is evaluating the Ascend 910C chip.

Pushed to choose, they keep both

Washington is considering warning countries against joining both the U.S.- and China-led AI camps. Kazakhstan has signed up to both: America's Pax Silica and China's World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization.

Researchers say China would love countries to pick it, but knows an ultimatum is unrealistic for now, so it works slowly, getting them onto Chinese products.

The harder Washington pushes, the more middle powers want an exit.

In one line: they talk about picking sides, but the ledger only counts value for money.