On October 25, 2026, the Associated Press published a report by Chan Ho-Him and Didi Tang on how countries are positioning between two AI groupings: the US-led Pax Silica, focused on AI and semiconductor supply chains, and China's World AI Cooperation Organization (WAICO). Its central claim, attributed to experts, is that the window for countries to choose freely "may be narrowing".
Hedging, case by case
Kazakhstan is the report's main example. Its AI minister visited Washington in June to join Pax Silica, and about three weeks later the country signed WAICO in Shanghai "alongside 28 other initial founding countries including Pakistan and Russia". It also has an NVIDIA deal worth up to $10 billion for a data-centre "valley". "Everyone is hedging," said Dana Masalimova, a former Kazakh diplomat. "We don't want this binary choice."
Indonesia, rich in nickel and copper, has joined WAICO. Mari Pangestu, vice chair of its National Economic Council, said: "We should be able to be part of both, put it that way." Singapore, where Anthropic recently opened an office, is considering WAICO. Japan, closely aligned with the US on chips, will not reject cheaper Chinese models for "lower-risk applications," according to a Kyoto professor quoted in the piece. In Saudi Arabia, Humain launched a platform in September built on a Chinese open model while also holding an NVIDIA deal. AidData counts Chinese official grants and loans for AI-related projects in at least 77 low- and middle-income countries.
The US position
The US position quoted by AP is explicit: "Countries can't be trusted partners in Pax Silica while substantively engaging in initiatives that advance a competing vision for super intelligence." China's embassy replied that "AI should not be owned by major countries." President Trump's summary, from last month, was "whoever wins AI, wins."
Where India stands
AP's text does not discuss India, but India chose earlier. It formally joined Pax Silica on February 20, 2026, at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, according to The Quint, which listed Australia, Greece, Israel, Japan, Qatar, South Korea, Singapore, the UAE and the UK among members. If that list is right, Singapore would be in Pax Silica while considering WAICO -- exactly the hedge Washington says it will not accept. For India, the practical question is supply. Its public compute programme depends on imported accelerators, while many Indian developers build on open-weight models from Chinese labs. If Washington's "substantively engaging" test ever reaches model choice, those two dependencies could pull in different directions.
What remains uncertain. Neither bloc has published binding obligations that AP describes in detail, so it is not clear what "substantively engaging" means in practice, whether it would cover using Chinese open-weight models, or what the consequences of dual membership would be.
Analysis: For most of the past two years, model choice was a technical and cost decision. This report suggests it is becoming a geopolitical one too, and companies that sell into governments will feel it first. Three steps reduce the risk. Keep a model inventory that records the origin of every model in production, including open-weight base models behind fine-tunes. Design the serving layer so that a model can be swapped without rewriting prompts and evaluations. And for public-sector bids in India and elsewhere, ask early whether procurement rules restrict model or chip origin, because "lower-risk applications" is exactly where those lines are likely to be drawn.
Sources and evidence
An AP report published October 25 says countries such as Kazakhstan and Indonesia are joining or courting both the US-led Pax Silica and China's 29-founder WAICO, while the US State Department says Pax Silica members cannot substantively engage in a competing initiative; India joined Pax Silica on February 20, so model and chip origin is becoming a procurement constraint that teams should track in their model inventory.