OpenAI says it wants to support sovereign AI. But it’s not doing so out of the kindness of its heart

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I spent last week in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at the Fortune ASEAN-GCC Economic Forum, where I moderated two of the many on-stage discussions that touched on AI. It was clear from the conference that leaders in Southeast Asia and the Gulf are desperate to ensure their countries benefit from the AI revolution. But they are also concerned about “AI Sovereignty” and want to control their own destiny when it comes to AI technology. They want to control key parts of the AI tech stack—from data centers to data to AI models and applications—so that they are not wholly dependent on technology being created in the U.S. or China.

This is particularly the case with AI, because while no tech is neutral, AI—especially large language models—embody particular values and cultural norms fairly explicitly. Leaders in these regions worry their own values and cultures won’t be represented in these models unless they train their own versions. They are also wary of the rhetoric emanating from Washington, D.C., that would force them to choose between the U.S. and China when it comes to AI models, applications, and infrastructure.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has scrupulously avoided picking sides, in the past expressing a desire to be seen as a neutral territory for U.S. and Chinese tech companies. At the Fortune conference, he answered a question about Washington’s push to force countries such as Malaysia into its technological orbit alone, saying that China was an important neighbor while also noting that the U.S. is Malaysia’s No. 1 investor as well as a key trading partner. “We have to navigate [geopolitics] as a global strategy, not purely dictated by national or regional interests,” he said, somewhat cryptically.

AI Sovereignty will be difficult for many countries to achieve

But speakers on one of the panels I moderated at the conference also made it clear that achieving AI sovereignty was not going to be easy for most countries. Kiril Evtimov, the chief technology officer at G42, the UAE AI company that has emerged as an important player both regionally and increasingly globally, said that few countries could afford to build their own AI models and also maintain the vast data centers needed to support training and running the most advanced AI models. He said most nations would have to pick which parts of the technology stack that they could actually afford to own. For many, it might come down to relying on open-source models for specific use cases where they didn’t want to depend on models from Western technology vendors, such as helping to power government services. “Technically, this is probably as sovereign as it will get,” he said.

Also, on the panel was Jason Kwon, OpenAI’s chief strategy officer, who spoke about the company’s recently announced “AI for Countries” program. Sitting within its Project Stargate effort to build colossal data centers worldwide, the program offers a way for OpenAI to partner with national governments, allowing them to tap OpenAI’s expertise in building data centers to train and host cutting edge AI models.

But what would those countries offer in exchange? Well, money, for one thing. The first partner in the AI for Countries program is the UAE, which has committed to investing billions of dollars to build a 1 gigawatt Stargate data center in Abu Dhabi, with the first 200 megawatt portion of this expected to go live next year. The UAE has also agreed, as part of this effort, to invest additional billions into the U.S.-based Stargate datacenters OpenAI is creating. (G42 is a partner in this project, as are Oracle, Nvidia, Cisco, and SoftBank.)

In exchange for this investment, the UAE is getting help deploying OpenAI’s software throughout the government, as well as in key sectors such as energy, healthcare, education, and transportation. What’s more, every UAE citizen is getting free access to OpenAI’s normally subscription-based ChatGPT Plus service.

OpenAI says it will “co-develop” its AI for Countries Programs

For those concerned that depending so heavily on a single U.S.-based tech company might undermine the idea of AI sovereignty, OpenAI sought to make clear that the version of ChatGPT it makes available will be tailored to the needs of each partner country. The company wrote in its blog post announcing the AI for Countries program: “This will be AI of, by, and for the needs of each particular country, localized in their language and for their culture and respecting future global standards.” OpenAI is also agreeing to help make investments in the local AI startup ecosystem alongside local venture capital investors.

I asked Kwon how countries that are not as wealthy as the UAE might be able to take advantage of OpenAI’s AI for Countries program if they didn’t have billions to invest in building a Stargate-size data center in their own country, let alone also helping to fund data centers in the U.S. Kwon answered that the program would be “co-developed” with each partner. “Because we recognise each country is going to be different in terms of its needs and what it’s capable of doing and what its citizens are going to require,” he said.

He suggested that if a country couldn’t directly contribute funds, it might be able to contribute something else—such as data, which could help make AI models that better understand local languages and culture. “It’s not just about having the capital,” he said. He also suggested that countries could contribute through AI literacy, training, or educational efforts and also through helping local businesses collaborate with OpenAI.

Kwon’s answer left me wondering how national governments and their citizens would feel about this kind of exchange—trading valuable or culturally-sensitive data, for instance, in order to get access to OpenAI’s latest tech. Would they ultimately come to see it as a Faustian bargain? In many ways, countries still face the dilemma G42’s Evitmov flicked at: They can have access to the most advanced AI capabilities or they can have AI sovereignty. But they may not be able to have both.

With that, here’s more AI news.

Jeremy Kahn
jeremy.kahn@fortune.com
@jeremyakahn

Want to know more about how to use AI to transform your business? Interested in what AI will mean for the fate of companies, and countries? Why not join me in Singapore on July 22 and 23 for Fortune Brainstorm AI Singapore. We will dive deep into the latest on AI agents, examine the data center build out in Asia, and talk to top leaders from government, board rooms, and academia in the region and beyond. You can apply to attend here.

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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com