Middle powers can make deliberate choices about where to specialize, where to depend on other countries and when to cooperate. In doing so, it is possible to secure durable influence over the global trajectory of AI.
This paper highlights the fact that, for middle powers, achieving AI sovereignty is highly complex and multi-layered. There is no simple solution for mitigating dependence on foreign players. Inevitably, middle power ambitions will be constrained by the realities of superpower dominance over investment, data, frontier models and compute, alongside enabling factors, such as trust, infrastructure, energy, industry and talent.
Recognition of these constraints is a pragmatic and strategic necessity for sovereign AI. For middle powers, it is important that strategic thinking is more informed in relation to the building blocks of AI (notably, where these are concentrated in the global AI supply chain) and realistic about the feasibility of AI ambitions and their longevity. Without the comprehensive capacities of the US or China, middle powers can retain some agency in determining how to build domestic AI capabilities and when to rely on or cooperate with others.
Traditional measures of a country’s international standing – such as economy size, military capacity and diplomatic reach – still matter greatly for AI. But distinctive capabilities such as semiconductor manufacturing, ready access to affordable energy, or even regulatory and governance leadership can boost the global status of middle powers. This more fluid understanding of national strength demonstrates how power can be exercised not only through technical dominance, but also through the capacity to shape standards, govern access and manage dependencies.
Against this backdrop, middle powers face a strategic landscape defined not by a binary choice of success or failure, but by a range of viable, pragmatic pathways – specialize, align, share or hedge – as detailed in the previous chapter.
Each of these strategies carries risks, trade-offs and opportunities. None guarantees full sovereignty, but all offer ways to secure meaningful agency to develop and deploy AI in the national interest – in a system where complete autonomy is unattainable. The real challenge for middle powers is not to replicate the superpowers’ full-stack strategies, but to craft resilient and sustainable positions within an interdependent global AI order. By recognizing AI sovereignty as multi-layered, middle powers can move beyond the false dichotomy of ‘winning’ or ‘losing’ and instead focus on positioning themselves strategically.
Through deliberate choices about where to specialize, where to depend and where to cooperate, middle powers can secure durable influence over the global trajectory of AI – with the aim of ensuring that sovereignty in the age of artificial intelligence remains not the privilege of a few, but a negotiated resource shared by many.
