Halifax International Security Forum 2024: When AI Meets Geopolitics

I’m stateside again after spending the weekend in Nova Scotia at the 16th annual Halifax International Security Forum.

This year’s Forum took place in the midst of rising geopolitical competition around AI. Forum participants wanted to understand what rapid technological advances will mean for the economy, security, and the future writ large.

As I shared in a fireside chat, smartly hosted by POLITICO’s Luiza Savage, democracies invented the models that are accelerating today’s medicine and drug discoveries, advancing the frontiers of materials science, and breaking new ground in quantum science.

But the race is very real, with most research and investment driven by private industry. If we want to stay ahead, we will need to harmonize AI regulations and pro-innovation agendas.

To get this right, we should focus on three areas:

• Digital infrastructure. We need to approach the AI race with the same urgency we brought to the space race in the 1960s. But this time the private sector will play a critical role in laying the groundwork for success. 
• Workforce readiness. The scope of AI as a general-purpose technology means that public and private partners will need to work together to scale upskilling courses and prepare people for the jobs of tomorrow.
• Removing barriers to innovation. Democracies need pro-innovation agendas to continue to lead the race, innovate, and scale AI in ways that benefit people everywhere.

We need to keep the momentum going. Because the AI competition will likely be won not by the countries that invent first, but by the countries that deploy the best.

Catch up on my full conversation with POLITICO’s Luiza Savage here.