While the United States and Europe are focused on domestic regulation and high-end model performance, China is quietly executing a strategy that could allow it to dictate the global standards for artificial intelligence (AI). A new analysis published in Foreign Policy warns that Beijing’s approach of embedding its AI technology and infrastructure across the Global South is creating a de facto standard that the West may soon find impossible to ignore or reverse.
The article, titled “How China Is Winning the Global AI Race,” argues that the true battleground for AI supremacy is not just in the laboratories of Silicon Valley or the data centers of Shenzhen, but in the developing economies of Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. In these regions, Chinese tech giants are rapidly deploying affordable, accessible AI solutions tailored to local needs, establishing a technological footprint with significant geopolitical implications.
Setting the Standards by Default
The most critical consequence of this expansion, according to the Foreign Policy piece, is the power to set global standards. In the technology industry, the entity with the widest deployment often dictates the technical standards, protocols, and ethical norms that govern its use.
By rapidly deploying its AI systems across the Global South, China is establishing a de facto global standard. The article warns that while the European Union focuses on drafting comprehensive AI regulations (such as the AI Act) and the US debates domestic policy, China is actively shaping the reality on the ground across dozens of countries.
This standard-setting power extends beyond technical specifications to include norms around data privacy, surveillance, and the role of the state in technology governance. The article suggests that the Chinese model of AI, which often prioritizes state security and social control over individual privacy, is being exported alongside the technology itself, appealing to authoritarian or semi-authoritarian regimes in the developing world.
The implications are profound. If a majority of the world’s countries adopt AI systems built on Chinese standards and norms, the Western model of AI governance, which emphasizes individual rights, transparency, and democratic accountability, could become a minority position in global forums like the United Nations and the International Telecommunication Union.
The Open-Source Advantage
The Foreign Policy analysis also points to China’s strategic use of open-source AI models as a key driver of its global influence. Companies like Alibaba (with Qwen) and Moonshot AI (with Kimi K2.6) have released highly capable open-source models that are freely available to developers worldwide. Notably, Kimi K2.6 topped the OpenRouter leaderboard as the most-used AI model globally over the past two weeks, while Qwen has captured more than 50% of global open-source model downloads, with approximately one billion total downloads by March 2026 .
This open-source strategy serves multiple purposes. It accelerates global adoption of Chinese AI architectures, builds goodwill among international developer communities, and creates a vast ecosystem of applications built on Chinese foundational technology. The article argues that this approach is particularly effective in the Global South, where developers may lack the resources to access expensive, proprietary Western models.
The contrast with the US approach is stark. OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google have largely maintained proprietary control over their most capable models, making them accessible only through paid APIs. This creates a cost barrier that disadvantages developers in lower-income countries, while Chinese open-source models are freely available to anyone with an internet connection.
(Related: The US-China AI Gap Has Closed, and Silicon Valley Is Starting to Notice)
The Strategy of “Digital Silk Road” Expansion
While the Foreign Policy largely focuses on software, China’s AI expansion is also intertwined with its broader “Digital Silk Road” initiative. Chinese companies like Huawei, Alibaba, and Tencent are not merely selling software; they are building the underlying digital infrastructure, from 5G networks and subsea cables to cloud data centers, that enables AI deployment in developing nations.
This gives Chinese firms a potential advantage. When a country relies on Chinese hardware for its telecommunications and data storage, it becomes significantly easier and more cost-effective to adopt Chinese AI software and services. There is a risk of a “lock-in” effect, in which developing nations become dependent on the Chinese tech ecosystem, making it difficult for Western competitors to enter the market later.
(Related: TikTok Wins Thailand’s Approval for $25 Billion Data Center Expansion)
The Governance Vacuum
There is a critical governance vacuum that China is moving to fill. As AI becomes more powerful and more widely deployed, the need for international governance frameworks is becoming increasingly urgent. Questions about AI safety, data sovereignty, algorithmic accountability, and the use of AI in weapons systems require multilateral solutions.
However, the US and its allies have been slow to develop comprehensive international AI governance frameworks. The Biden administration’s AI Safety Summit in 2023 and the subsequent Bletchley Declaration were important first steps, but they involved only a limited number of countries and produced non-binding commitments.
China, by contrast, has been actively engaged in international AI governance forums, proposing its own frameworks and standards at bodies like the UN and the ITU. While Chinese proposals often reflect Beijing’s own governance preferences, their active promotion in international forums gives China a significant advantage in shaping the eventual global consensus.
A Wake-Up Call for the West
The analysis in the article serves as a wake-up call for Western policymakers. It argues that the current US strategy of attempting to contain China’s AI development through export controls on advanced semiconductors is insufficient and potentially counterproductive.
While export controls may slow China’s progress at the very cutting edge of AI research, they do little to prevent the widespread deployment of slightly less advanced, but still highly capable, AI systems across the developing world. The article suggests that the US and its allies must pivot from a strategy of containment to one of active competition, offering compelling, affordable alternatives to Chinese AI technology in the Global South.
If the West fails to recognize and respond to this strategy, it may wake up to find that the rules of the global AI economy have already been written in Beijing.