US-China AI Dialogue Signals an Emerging Condominium Challenging India's Technological Sovereignty

Gist The impending bilateral dialogue on artificial intelligence between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping signals a shift toward a bipolar global AI architecture, contrasting sharply with the multilateral rhetoric seen at the recent Delhi BRICS summit. While China promotes an open-source AI vision to court the Global South, its closed-door negotiations with Washington focus on risk management and strategic stability. For a civil services aspirant, this development is crucial because it mirrors the Cold War nuclear order: a great-power condominium that could eventually impose discriminatory technology controls on emerging powers, directly challenging India's quest for technological sovereignty. Background The global governance of Artificial Intelligence is currently fragmented, lacking a universal regulatory body. Initial bilateral efforts to manage AI risks between the world's two largest tech powers began under the Biden administration in November 2023 at Woodside, California. This culminated in a modest but critical agreement at Lima, affirming that human beings, rather than AI, must retain control over nuclear weapon deployment. The current dialogue under the Trump administration attempts to build a crisis-management channel and incident…