AI Diplomacy in the Global South — Strategy or Afterthought?
There is a new diplomacy unfolding—not with embassies and envoys, but with chips, datasets, and compute capacity. It is being written in lines of code, debated in standard-setting bodies, and fought over in export controls and semiconductor subsidies. This is AI diplomacy—the reshaping of foreign policy through artificial intelligence, where power is coded as much as it is negotiated.
But as the United States, China, and the European Union race to claim the high ground, a critical question burns: Where is the Global South in this equation?
AI is often framed as a clash of titans, but this framing is both narrow and perilous. If left unchecked, it risks casting the rest of the world as passive adopters—importing values they didn’t define, wielding models they didn’t train, and living under digital ecosystem they had no hand in shaping.
We’ve seen this before. Throughout history, powerful countries have used new technologies as tools of control, even when they were framed as progress. But this time must be different—because what’s at stake isn’t just technology. It’s our future.
The Architecture of Exclusion
From export controls on semiconductors to AI governance discussions in major capitals, today’s diplomacy around artificial intelligence is largely shaped by a few influential players seeking to secure strategic advantage. However, the forums where global rules are being set remain limited in representation.
Most AI governance forums are hosted in elite capitals. Forums like the G7’s Hiroshima Process or OECD’s technical committees continue to sideline the Global South. Fewer than 15% of global AI governance initiatives include meaningful representation from Global South nations, and only 5% are led by non-OECD countries (DiploFoundation, 2025).
This may not simply be a design oversight—it reflects deeper structural dynamics that tend to replicate existing global hierarchies. While framed as efforts toward ethical oversight, many governance processes risk reinforcing unequal participation if inclusivity is not actively addressed.
As some analysts have put it: “If the rules are written without us, then they’re not global—they risk becoming selective or exclusionary.”
The Infrastructure Gap Is Political, Not Just Technical
AI leadership requires more than ambition. It demands sovereign infrastructure: compute power, high-performance chips, skilled labor, localized datasets, and strong connectivity. These are disproportionately concentrated in the Global North and China.
In 2022, private AI investment in the U.S. topped $47 billion. By 2024, only 3% of global AI compute capacity was located in Africa and Latin America combined (OECD, 2024). The rest sits with the traditional power blocs.
This isn’t just a market imbalance—it’s a geopolitical chokehold. When compute, cloud storage, and models reside abroad, autonomy dissolves.
But there are alternatives—and the diplomacy here is not symbolic, but structural. A Pan-African AI initiative, backed by regional investment, could build sovereign infrastructure to train models on local data for health, agriculture, and education. Similarly, a South-led chip fabrication consortium, with open architecture and shared governance, could shift the balance of compute power. This is the diplomacy of infrastructure—where strategic autonomy begins not with statements, but with servers.
As many experts have noted: development finance must move beyond pilot projects and start investing in real, regional, digital power.
The Global South Is Already Leading—But Often Not Visible
Amid many risks and challenges, a quiet but deliberate diplomatic awakening is underway.
India is charting a path between U.S. tech hegemony and Chinese infrastructure diplomacy, advancing an “AI for All” vision grounded in accessibility and equity. Kenya is positioning itself as a continental leader, investing in regional AI research hubs and advocating for African-led standards in data governance. Brazil is pioneering digital rights legislation rooted in social justice and democratic accountability. Indonesia is scaling AI education and indigenous language models across its archipelago. The UAE, leveraging its neutrality, convenes global dialogues on ethics and compute equity. Saudi Arabia, with its Vision 2030, is investing heavily in AI infrastructure and ethical narratives.
By 2025, over 20 Global South countries had adopted national AI strategies or digital rights laws—up from just five in 2018 (UNESCO, 2025). These are not isolated moves. They are blueprints for a future that resists extractive architectures and insists on agency, dignity, and sovereignty.
The Skeptics’ Challenge—And Why It’s Wrong
Some argue that the Global South lacks the resources or expertise to shape the future of artificial intelligence—citing the concentration of PhDs, supercomputers, and top research labs in the Global North and East. But this view is outdated and misleading.
India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transformed digital transactions with modest infrastructure. Kenya’s AI hubs are training models tailored to African realities. The UAE and Saudi Arabia are strategically using AI as a form of diplomacy—hosting global forums, establishing AI ministries, investing in large-scale compute infrastructure, and shaping the narrative on ethics and regulation. These countries are not just building tools; they are building soft power and convening authority.
Collective action matters. Through alliances like the African Union, ASEAN, or the Gulf Cooperation Council, countries can pool talent, share compute infrastructure, and develop common standards—turning perceived weaknesses into coordinated diplomatic leverage.
Because the real risk isn’t lack of capacity—it’s lack of strategic assertion.
AI diplomacy is not solely about having the most chips or largest models. It’s about influencing norms, owning narratives, and having a seat—and a voice—at the tables where the rules are made. It’s about hosting summits, not just attending them; shaping standards, not just complying with them.
It also involves geography, access, and trust. Nations like the UAE and Saudi Arabia are using their regional neutrality and financial capital to create convening spaces—positioning themselves as brokers between power blocs, and as bridges between ethics and innovation.
In this light, AI diplomacy becomes not just a matter of technical capacity, but of strategic positioning. The question is no longer: Does the Global South have what it takes? It’s: Will it claim the role it already has the power to play?
“The Global South doesn’t need more experts—it needs the courage to redefine expertise, assert its sovereignty, and help author a truly plural AI future.”
A Roadmap for AI Sovereignty and Diplomatic Equity
To forge a future where the Global South is not just present but powerful, a bold and coordinated strategy is essential. This demands more than ambition—it calls for a deliberate rebellion against dependency, a reimagining of global governance, and a commitment to homegrown innovation rooted in regional realities.
First, the Global South must redesign multilateralism. The UN’s 2024 AI resolution, backed by 120 nations, devoted only 10% of its actions to Southern leadership (UN General Assembly, 2024). That’s not equity—it’s optics. A Global South AI Alliance—uniting the African Union, ASEAN, Mercosur, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)—could co-develop standards, pool diplomatic capital, and negotiate as a unified bloc. Institutions like the World Bank and the International Telecommunication Union must shift from symbolic pilot projects to funding durable systems: regional AI training centers, open-source data platforms, and sovereign digital stacks that anchor the South’s leadership in global forums.
Second, sovereignty begins with infrastructure. The South must invest in its own systems: regional compute hubs, ethical data repositories, and locally governed chip fabrication. A Latin American Compute Network, backed by Mercosur and the Inter-American Development Bank, could pool resources to build regional cloud hubs—ensuring data sovereignty and reducing dependence on foreign providers. The GCC, with its significant capital reserves and strategic digital ambitions, could lead investments in sovereign AI infrastructure—establishing compute corridors, launching public-private cloud platforms, and enabling regional AI accelerators serving the Arab region and beyond. McKinsey estimates that AI could add $1.2 trillion to Africa’s economy by 2030—but only if the foundations of compute and governance are built locally.
Third, the Global South must engage with Big Tech on new terms. Not through extractive licenses, but through co-ownership, co-design, and shared accountability. Imagine a partnership between South African startups and global tech firms to build healthcare AI tools—with profits reinvested locally and governance shaped by local regulators. A chatbot for farmers must serve their communities, not siphon their data to distant shareholders.
Fourth, none of this is possible without investing in people. AI diplomacy without talent is hollow. The South must build robust pipelines—fellowships, scholarships, and AI academies—to equip the next generation of engineers, ethicists, and policy leaders. Programs emerging across Asia, Latin America, and Africa show the potential—but they must scale with intent and long-term investment.
Finally, a coordinated South–South strategy is no longer optional—it is imperative. Fragmentation weakens; unity empowers. Shared infrastructure, harmonized standards, regional trade agreements, and cross-border data flows must be aligned to create an interoperable digital economy rooted in fairness. A jointly developed Charter for AI Justice—linked to equitable trade frameworks and compute access—could transform the South from a peripheral player into a gravitational center for global AI governance and ethical innovation.
Conclusion: Authoring the Future
AI is no longer just a technological frontier—it is a diplomatic terrain. The future of international relations will not be shaped solely by treaties and envoys, but by data flows, compute access, governance standards, and the alliances forged in digital space. And in this evolving global order, the question is no longer whether the Global South will participate—but whether it will lead.
Imagine a world where the strategic centers of AI diplomacy are not confined to Silicon Valley, Brussels, or Beijing, but rise equally from Riyadh, Nairobi, Jakarta, São Paulo, and Mumbai. A world where treaties are not signed in back rooms of global summits, but co-authored in regional forums with Southern leadership at the helm. A future where compute is a currency of sovereignty, where digital infrastructure is a pillar of foreign policy, and where AI ethics are negotiated not imposed.
The road to that future is steep. Geopolitical rivalries risk redrawing digital fault lines. Export controls and investment restrictions could turn the Global South into collateral damage in a new Cold War of code. Development finance still favors short-term pilots over long-term sovereignty. And entrenched global institutions often fail to treat Southern voices as strategic equals.
But these obstacles are not destiny. The Global South holds three assets no algorithm can replace: scale, legitimacy, and moral clarity. It houses the majority of humanity. It understands how to govern complexity at scale—from multilingual societies to fragile ecologies. And it has the right to insist that digital futures must serve dignity, not domination.
If AI diplomacy continues to mirror traditional power politics, the Global South will be coded into irrelevance. But if the South seizes this moment—building alliances, asserting standards, shaping protocols, and convening its own summits—it can rewrite the script entirely. A Global South AI Summit, hosted not as a counterweight but as a center of gravity. A Charter for AI Justice, rooted not in inherited norms but in negotiated pluralism. A Compute Compact, where access becomes a shared global good—not a hoarded strategic asset.
This is not a call for inclusion at someone else’s table—it is an invitation to design a new one.
AI diplomacy must not repeat the cartography of colonialism, where power was drawn by the few and enforced on the many. It must become a force for digital non-alignment: plural, principled, and proactive. From the foreign ministries in Accra to the data ministries in Jakarta, from the digital envoys of Kigali to the compute corridors emerging in Abu Dhabi and Bogotá—the South is not waiting. It is organizing.
The world’s next chapter must be authored by all of us—or it will serve only some of us.
Ali Al Mokdad
