US and China are the two clear AI superpowers, but other countries might have a chance to come together to create a third front.
This stark reality of the global technology landscape forms the backdrop for a compelling proposal from one of the world’s most influential figures in artificial intelligence. Demis Hassabis, the co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, has issued a call to action for ‘like-minded’ nations to form a powerful coalition in AI. At a recent event, the pioneering computer scientist, entrepreneur, and Nobel laureate articulated a vision for a third bloc, capable of shaping the future of the world’s most transformative technology with a voice rooted in shared democratic values.
“I’ve been working on AI for 20-plus years now. DeepMind was started more than 15 years ago; almost nobody was working on AI then. Now the whole world is working on it, and we’ve always believed that it’s going to be the most transformative technology humanity will ever invent,” Hassabis stated. “So how we build it, the decisions we, the leaders in this field and the governments in this field, make now is going to be decisive about how this goes.”
While deeply optimistic about AI’s potential for good, particularly in science and medicine, Hassabis acknowledged the inherent dangers. “I’m very excited about applying AI to science and using it to accelerate scientific discovery in medicine. That’s why I spent my whole career working on AI, and we’re making great progress on that front,” he said. “But it’s a dual-use technology, and there are risks too.” This dual nature, he argued, necessitates a robust international dialogue to establish global norms and standards.
It is this need for a strong, unified voice in the global AI debate that underpins his proposal for a new coalition. Hassabis revealed these conversations are not new, noting long-standing discussions with figures like French President Emmanuel Macron.
“I’d love to see more dialogue at the international level about agreeing on things like minimum standards for how we want these AI systems to work,” he explained. “I’ve been saying for a long time, and we’ve been talking with President Macron for a long time—maybe even 10 years ago now—about this. If you want to influence how this debate goes on the global scale, you have to also be in the lead technically to have a seat at the table.”
He then explicitly named the countries he believes could form the core of this new alliance. “I think the UK and France and a few other like-minded countries, perhaps like Canada and Switzerland, if we band together with the same values, can form a counterweight to the two global superpowers and influence the debate at the global stage,” Hassabis urged. “I think that’s very important to have that voice, given that this technology is going to affect everyone in the world.”
And Europe does have some top AI talent of its own. Hassabis himself is British, and had set up DeepMind in London. Meta AI Chief Scientist Yann Lecun is from France, while Geoffrey Hinton, one of the godfathers of AI, is British. There are a smattering of capable AI companies in Europe, such as Mistral and Huggingface from France, which are prominent in the space. Switzerland is also home to some top AI researchers.
As such, Hassabis’s call of a third front not just a theoretical proposition; it taps into a clear and growing trend. His vision is actively materializing, as evidenced by a landmark technology and science partnership announced today between the UK and France. Dubbed the “Entente Technologique,” the agreement includes significant collaboration on AI, including a partnership between the Bristol Centre for Supercomputing and France’s AI Factory, GENCI. This follows a series of global AI summits hosted in Bletchley Park (UK), Seoul, and Paris, which have fostered international dialogue on AI safety and governance. French President Emmanuel Macron has himself championed a “third way” for Europe in AI, aiming to carve out a path of strategic autonomy that is distinct from the US and China. The formation of a coalition as suggested by Hassabis, built on a foundation of shared democratic principles and bolstered by combined technical expertise and computing power, could represent the next logical step in this movement, creating a formidable third force to ensure the future of AI is not solely dictated by Washington or Beijing.