Introduction: AI and the Americas

Artificial intelligence has become humanity's most urgent conversation. Whether you're in a barbershop in São Paulo or a boardroom in Manhattan, someone is talking about it. But this isn't just another technology trend destined to fade from the headlines like the metaverse or NFTs. AI represents something fundamentally different: a transformation as profound as electrification or the internet, compressed into a timeframe that gives nations and regions mere years, not decades, to adapt.

The Americas stand at a critical juncture. For the United States, AI represents both the continuation of technological dominance and an existential competitive threat. For Canada, it's a question of whether research excellence can translate into economic sovereignty. For Latin America and the Caribbean, the stakes are even higher, the difference between leveraging AI for development or becoming digitally dependent on powers outside the hemisphere. The choices made in the next few years will reshape power dynamics across the Western Hemisphere for generations.

This is the first in a ten-part series exploring how artificial intelligence is transforming geopolitics in the Americas. Over the next ten weeks, we'll examine why this technology matters so much, who holds the cards, and what strategic options exist for nations large and small as they navigate this new landscape.

We have long treated the digital world as weightless, borderless, and neutral. But as AI scales, we are learning that code has mass. Because the first alliance to harness AI at scale will command a form of hard and soft power without historical precedent. This is the consensus assessment from Washington to Beijing.

Why AI Is Geopolitical

AI is geopolitical because its applications touch every dimension of national power. Economically, it promises to become an industry rivaling finance, healthcare, and industrials in GDP impact. The White House envisions AI ushering in both a renaissance and an industrial revolution simultaneously; an ambitious framing that signals just how transformative policymakers believe this technology will be. Militarily, AI offers capabilities that could serve as an equalizer for smaller nations or amplify the advantages of major powers. Global military spending on AI is expected to exceed $20 billion this year alone, and countries like Mexico have already incorporated AI into their national defense strategies since 2018.

The United States currently leads the AI race, home to the world's most advanced research labs, largest technology companies, and deepest pools of capital and talent. But this dominance is being contested on multiple fronts. China has made AI a central pillar of its technological ambitions and has mobilized state resources at a scale that challenges American leadership. Even among allies, questions of dependence and sovereignty are creating friction as countries seek to build their own capabilities rather than rely entirely on American platforms and infrastructure.

This dynamic has triggered what amounts to a new “Cold War of Compute” between Washington and Beijing. One fought not with nuclear arsenals but with compute clusters, semiconductor supply chains, and competing visions for how AI should be governed and deployed. The ultimate question remains, If an algorithm can shut down a power grid, is it a weapon or a utility? And critically for our purposes, Latin American nations find themselves caught in the middle of this competition, forced to make strategic choices about alignment, partnership, and technological dependency that will echo through the 21st century. However, many nations in the region lack the energy baseload and digital infrastructure to compete. This divergence suggests that without deliberate policy intervention, AI could exacerbate hemispheric inequality rather than solve it.

The Americas' Strategic Position

The hemisphere's position in the global AI landscape is marked by stark asymmetries and untapped potential.

The United States sits at the center of the global AI ecosystem. Silicon Valley's major labs are pushing the technological frontier. American cloud providers offer the infrastructure that powers AI development worldwide. U.S. universities produce much of the foundational research. But this dominance comes with vulnerabilities: dependence on Asian semiconductor manufacturing, competition for global talent, and the challenge of maintaining technological leadership while managing the domestic disruptions AI will bring.

Canada has carved out a distinctive position as an AI research powerhouse, with pioneering work in deep learning and strong academic institutions. Yet Canada faces a familiar dilemma: how to translate research excellence into economic capture when the infrastructure, capital, and markets are concentrated south of the border. The question of building an AI "moat" for national security purposes is becoming increasingly urgent in Ottawa.

For Latin America, the AI transformation presents both extraordinary opportunity and profound risk. Mexico stands to benefit from nearshoring trends as companies seek to build resilient supply chains closer to U.S. markets. AI could accelerate Mexico's expansion into higher-value white-collar industries and boost productivity across its economy. Brazil, with its large domestic market and established technology sector, has ambitions to become a regional AI hub. But across Central and South America, the picture is mixed. Some nations are racing to position themselves strategically, while others lack the basic digital infrastructure, energy capacity, and technical talent to participate meaningfully in the AI economy.

This divergence matters because AI development requires end-to-end capabilities that span multiple nations. Enterprise AI demands software and hardware ranging from semiconductors, servers, data centers, and specialized chips. Producing these components truly takes a village. No single country, not even the United States, can build an entirely self-sufficient AI ecosystem. This interdependence creates both opportunities for collaboration and vulnerabilities that willing adversaries could exploit.

The ideal scenario would involve multinational cooperation and equitable sharing of AI's benefits across the hemisphere. But national security concerns make this unlikely. Instead, we're seeing a push toward establishing onshore AI industrial bases through hemispheric cooperation. Recognizing that aligning the Western Hemisphere into an integrated strategic alliance and supply chain makes both economic and security sense. It is viewed as unacceptable in Washington and, increasingly, in capitals across the Americas, to allow technology to fall under the control of powers outside the hemisphere.

What This Series Explores

Over the next ten weeks, we'll examine five critical dimensions of AI's geopolitical impact on the Americas:

Economic Power (Weeks 2-3): We'll explore why AI has emerged as a strategic industry alongside oil, finance, and semiconductors, and what this means for national competitiveness. Week 2 examines AI's industrial transformation and its implications for economic sovereignty. Week 3 tackles the employment outlook both the opportunities (replacing aging workforces, boosting productivity, expanding white-collar sectors) and the risks (worker displacement, inequality, social disruption).

Physical Foundations (Weeks 4-5): AI's digital nature obscures its profound physical requirements. Week 4 dissects the supply chains and infrastructure that make AI possible, from semiconductor fabrication to data center construction. Week 5 focuses on natural resources and energy demand, the critical minerals required for AI hardware and the unprecedented power consumption that's driving renewed interest in nuclear energy and challenging existing grid capacity across the hemisphere.

Hard Power (Week 6): Military applications of AI are expanding rapidly, from autonomous systems to intelligence analysis to command and control. We'll examine how AI is changing warfare, what this means for hemispheric security, and whether AI can truly serve as an equalizer for smaller nations facing adversaries with larger populations and conventional military advantages.

Rules and Standards (Week 7): The governance battles over AI will shape not just how the technology develops but who benefits from it. We'll explore competing regulatory models, the race to set international standards, and how emerging economies can position themselves strategically between competing AI ecosystems dominated by the United States, China, and Europe.

Equity and Future (Weeks 8-9): Week 8 examines AI sovereignty and dependency in the Global South, exploring whether Latin American nations can chart an independent course or whether technological dependence is inevitable. Week 9 looks toward 2035, developing scenarios for how different strategic choices made today could reshape the hemisphere's future.

Finally, Week 10 will synthesize these threads into a coherent framework for understanding AI's geopolitical implications and the strategic options available to nations across the Americas.

The Questions We'll Answer

Throughout this series, we'll tackle the most pressing questions facing policymakers, business leaders, and strategists:

• How will AI reshape hemispheric power balances? Will existing hierarchies be reinforced or disrupted?

• Where are the leverage points for countries that aren't superpowers? What strategic assets and advantages can smaller nations exploit?

• What does US-China competition mean for smaller American nations? Can they avoid being forced into binary choices, or is strategic alignment inevitable?

• Can Latin American countries develop AI sovereignty, or is dependency unavoidable? What would genuine technological autonomy require, and is it achievable?

• How might 2035 look different depending on choices made today? What are the critical junctures where decisions will determine divergent futures?

  
  

These aren't abstract academic questions. They're strategic imperatives that will determine prosperity, security, and autonomy for hundreds of millions of people across the hemisphere.

What Comes Next

Artificial intelligence represents more than technological change it's a restructuring of global power as significant as any in recent history. The Americas cannot afford to be passive observers of this transformation. The region has enormous advantages: proximity and partnership within the hemisphere, abundant natural resources, growing technical talent, and established democratic institutions that could offer an alternative to authoritarian approaches to AI governance.

But advantages must be mobilized. Infrastructure must be built. Regulatory frameworks must be established. Supply chains must be secured. Workforce transitions must be managed. And strategic choices about alignment and cooperation must be made with clear eyes about what's at stake.

Over the next nine weeks, we'll provide the framework, analysis, and strategic insight you need to navigate these challenges. Whether you're a policymaker shaping national strategy, a business leader positioning your organization for the AI era, or simply someone trying to understand how this technology will reshape our world, this series will give you the tools to think clearly about what's coming.

The AI transformation is already underway. The only question is whether the Americas will shape it or be shaped by it.

Next week: We examine why AI has become a strategic industry and what that means for economic power in the 21st century.

This is Part 1 of a 10-part series on The Geopolitics of Artificial Intelligence in the Americas by Core Geopolitical Insights LLC. Follow along each week as we explore how this transformative technology is reshaping power, prosperity, and security across the Western Hemisphere.