In the article “Implications of Artificial Intelligence on Geopolitics”, published in Horizons, the journal of the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development (CIRSD), Shyam Saran, former foreign secretary of India and president of the India International Centre, examines how artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping geopolitics, security and the global balance of power. He argues that the rapid development of AI, and of the more transformative artificial general intelligence (AGI), “is upending political, social, economic, and military activity both within nations and among them”. The opportunities are real, but so is the risk that the Global South is marginalised should advanced capabilities concentrate in the United States and China.
Saran locates AI power in physical infrastructure rather than software. Advanced semiconductor chips, data centres, electricity, water and skilled engineers are the physical “chokepoints” that determine leadership. Open-source models and distillation spread capability quickly, yet control over these resources lets leading powers hold their advantage. India’s investment in AI infrastructure, including large data centres, remains modest beside that of the United States and China.
The two leaders pursue different strategies. The United States licenses successive proprietary models and concentrates on frontier research; China favours open-source diffusion and application across its economy. Saran expects these ecosystems to grow incompatible, pressing developing countries to choose between them, while export controls on advanced chips and manufacturing equipment restrict access to the frontier.
On security, he argues that AI has already reshaped diplomacy, intelligence, cyber operations and warfare, and blurred the line between civilian and military use. Because AI offers few of the visible indicators that make nuclear systems verifiable, arms control faces what experts call an “ungovernable dead zone”. His concern is that the leading powers respond with restrictive arrangements echoing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, entrenching technological inequality against the Global South.
He therefore presses for genuine multilateralism: common safety standards, auditing and verification, and continued human oversight of AI. Cyberattacks, disinformation, deepfakes and misuse by non-state actors demand cooperation, but in his words “the Global South needs to mobilize international opinion in favor of a genuinely multilateral AI regime” rather than accept a cartel run by the technology leaders.
On AGI, Saran sees the potential to transform science, growth and military power alongside deep uncertainty about strategic stability and the standing of nation-states. An autonomous system pursuing goals beyond human control, he suggests, makes this a “threshold moment” for our species. He also flags financial risk: the scale of investment could end in a correction with geopolitical consequences.
For India and the Global South, AI could accelerate development if countries build critical infrastructure and cooperate to avoid dependence on a single bloc. But the shift from safety to opportunity, he cautions, should not obscure the security, governance and societal risks. As he concludes, “a brittle polity and a fragmenting society will not be able to meet the challenge that AI has unleashed”.
