Is Asia’s sovereign AI push an exercise in futility?

It’s a rallying cry that every government can get behind. As artificial intelligence (AI) seeps into more facets of society – including critical industries like defence, healthcare and financial services – countries want more control over the underlying technology.

There is also a fear that embedded values in the training data of foreign AI models can now spread at scale. This risks erasing cultural and linguistic nuances at a time when these tools are increasingly relied on by everyday citizens for search, drafting e-mails or completing homework assignments.