Democratic middle powers should jointly develop frontier AI and share its benefits globally

Key insights

Many supportive quotes treat concentrated AI capability, compute, wealth, or investment among a few countries, companies, or actors as a core reason to pool resources.
Supporters repeatedly pair joint development with sovereignty, arguing that collaboration can expand local control through joint sovereign capability, sovereign derivatives, or a shared industrial base.
Several supportive quotes broaden cooperation beyond a closed bloc, saying every nation should have a seat at the table and that benefits should reach developing countries.
Across governments, UN bodies, researchers, and civil-society voices, AI cooperation is linked not only to competitiveness but also to safety, trustworthiness, and accountability.
Even within pro-cooperation quotes, several participants distinguish interoperability, mutual recognition, and evidence-sharing from full harmonization into a single standard.

Arguments for

Pooling scale for sovereignty

Supporters argue that middle powers or aligned democracies can pool research, talent, compute, data, and procurement to build frontier-capable models and infrastructure that no single participant could create alone. They present this as a credible alternative to dominant powers or market actors and as a way to strengthen economic security, competitiveness, and technological sovereignty.

A coalition of aligned democracies, who pool research, talent, compute, and procurement power, would offer a credible alternative to the dominant market actors that increasingly define the global AI landscape.

Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada · Jun 8, 2026 · full quote
To guarantee access to frontier models and mitigate the risks of major power concentrations, middle powers must collaborate to form a broad coalition with shared values and complementary resources.

Yoshua Bengio · May 29, 2026 · full quote
The idea is to bring together data, compute, talent, and institutional commitment from a global consortium of partners to build frontier-capable foundation models that no single participant could build alone, while preserving each participant's ability to control its own data, op…

AI Alliance · May 30, 2026 · full quote
In a world of great power rivalry, middle powers have a choice: to compete for favour or to combine to create a third path with impact. The nations that invest in their own capabilities across strategic sectors – and partner with like-minded allies – will multiply their strength.…

Mark Carney · Jun 13, 2026 · full quote
an international advanced AI research & development partnership of AI bridge powers (1) can feasibly produce frontier AI models; and (2) is essential for safeguarding the sovereignty, democratic values, economic competitiveness and growth, technical innovation, and national secur…

A Blueprint for Multinational Advanced AI Development. · Nov 2025 · full quote
I think what you do is you set up the biggest possible thing you can. You don’t start small, you don’t start with giving money to any existing institution. You build an actual coalition that has enough money, that has enough leverage, that has enough talent, and that has enough g…

Anton Leicht · Jul 14, 2026 · full quote

Shared safety and accountability

Several quotes say no single country or institution can define safe, secure, and trustworthy AI on its own. They call for joint research, risk mitigation, technical information-sharing, and safety-by-design cooperation so emerging risks can be understood earlier, public trust can be strengthened, and frontier models can be developed responsibly.

At the Partnership on AI, we believe that no single country, government, nonprofit, nor research institution can divine on its own what safe, secure, and trustworthy AI looks like.

Rebecca Finlay · Jul 7, 2026 · full quote
Because we lack a unified independent evidence that is outside of the companies that are developing these models, this undermines public trust and objective accountability of these companies.

Melat Bilge Demirkoz · Jul 7, 2026 · full quote
International cooperation is essential for capturing the opportunities, sharing the benefits and mitigating the risks of new AI technologies. Australia and Canada are working together to make sure AI is safe, trustworthy and aligned with democratic values. This MOU between Austra…

Tim Ayres · Mar 6, 2026 · full quote
Expanding access to AI compute capacity, and promoting sustainable, resilient and environmentally responsible digital infrastructure, and supporting innovators while enhancing Canada and Finland’s shared economic security and prosperity. Exploring collaboration in frontier AI mod…

Canada-Finland Joint Statement · Apr 14, 2026 · full quote
This agreement with the UK reflects our shared commitment to ensuring artificial intelligence is developed and deployed safely, securely and responsibly. By strengthening cooperation with democracies, we are combining world-class expertise to understand emerging risks and keep pa…

Andrew Charlton · May 25, 2026 · full quote
This agreement opens a new chapter in the relationship between Spain and Canada. Artificial intelligence is one of the forces that will shape competitiveness and economic sovereignty in the decades ahead, and two democracies such as ours have a responsibility to lead together, bu…

Carlos Cuerpo · May 28, 2026 · full quote

Inclusive global benefit-sharing

Advocates argue that AI shaping humanity should be shaped by all humanity, with every country having capacity and voice in how AI is developed, deployed, and regulated. They emphasize equitable access, capacity building, support for developing countries, MSMEs, local languages, and sharing benefits with global south partners so AI can help close digital divides and support sustainable development.

Technology that will shape the future of humanity must be shaped by all humanity. It cannot be governed by a handful of countries or a handful of companies. Every nation needs a seat at the table.

António Guterres · Jul 17, 2026 · full quote
AI cooperation must deliver tangible benefits, support micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), preserve local languages, and address the needs of developing countries.

Angga Raka Prabowo · Jul 18, 2026 · full quote
Therefore, ensuring equitable access to AI technologies, strengthening capacity building, and promoting international cooperation must remain at the center of our collective efforts.

Government of Tajikistan · Jul 15, 2026 · full quote
Advanced AI capabilities, computing infrastructure, and investment remain concentrated among a limited number of actors. Inclusive governance must ensure that all countries have the capacity and voice to shape how AI is developed, deployed, and regulated.

United Nations Resident Coordinator Office · Jul 7, 2026 · full quote
The dialogue was established as a UN platform involving governments and all relevant stakeholders to support international cooperation and to share lessons learned and to discuss how AI can contribute to sustainable development and actually help close digital divides.

Egriselda López · Jun 2026 · full quote
Middle powers should aim to pool compute and data resources so they can run AI training and processing without being dependent on US or Chinese infrastructure. [...] Middle powers should therefore also consider how they can share the benefits of their own partnerships with global…

Giorgos Verdi · Feb 11, 2026 · full quote

Regional and bilateral building blocks

Supporters cite bilateral and regional arrangements among allies as practical building blocks for a larger coalition. These examples include joint declarations, shared public goods and standards work, a shared industrial base, and joint projects on AI infrastructure, showing how joint sovereign capability can move from vision to implementation.

Today’s Joint Declaration of intent moves the German-Canadian Digital Alliance from vision to implementation. Germany and Canada are united in our belief that responsible AI development and resilient digital ecosystems are critical to long-term economic strength. By deepening coo…

Karsten Wildberger · Feb 14, 2026 · full quote
Through our strengthened AI partnership and the launch of the Sovereign Technology Alliance, Canada and Germany will deepen cooperation on digital standards and public goods, AI model development, and the safe and secure use of AI while strengthening our technological and economi…

Evan Solomon · Feb 14, 2026 · full quote
We want to bring our leadership in defence, tech and AI together with Europe to multiply our strengths and build a shared industrial base across our continent.

Keir Starmer · Feb 14, 2026 · full quote
We must also work more concertedly with allies to develop joint sovereign capability. AI development needs to be part of an economic security reset with the EU, and we need to be able to participate in the Scaleup Europe Fund.

Anneliese Dodds · Jul 8, 2026 · full quote
Door samen met Europese partners te investeren in AI versterken we onze economie én onze digitale soevereiniteit.

Willemijn Aerdts · Jul 3, 2026 · full quote
An example of, of that is the joint project with Spain to receive one of the European AI gigafactories, making the Iberian Peninsula a hub for AI sustainable production and digital sovereignty.

Gonzalo Matias · Jul 6, 2026 · full quote

Arguments against

Risks of one standard

This view does not reject coordination outright, but warns that convergence for its own sake can go too far. A single standard could produce a lowest-common-denominator outcome that harms the innovation system and risks national interests in affected sectors.

The answer isn't convergence for its own sake. We can push too hard on one thing. But if you have one standard, you could risk a lowest common denominator outcome that can cost us the innovation system as well and might have a risk on the national interests in those sectors.

Nof Alhamli · Jul 7, 2026 · full quote

Middle ground

Interoperability over harmonization

Some quotes argue that countries will continue to have different laws, regulatory traditions, and policy priorities, so cooperation should prioritize interoperable frameworks, shared control mappings, and mutual recognition rather than full harmonization. On this view, evidence, auditing, and accountability should be able to travel across systems even when national or regional approaches differ.

AI governance faces much the same challenge. As AI systems increasingly operate across borders, countries will continue to develop different laws, different regulatory traditions, and different policy priorities. Harmonization is neither realistic nor entirely necessary, but inte…

World Intellectual Property Organization · Jul 7, 2026 · full quote
Before 2027 dialogue, we should advance shared terminology, comparable risk classifications, consistent documentation, interoperable incident reporting, and multilingual evaluation methods, while building pathways towards mutual recognition of testing, auditing, and certification…

Paula Bragantes Zamora · Jul 7, 2026 · full quote
So I think similar work can be applied to different combinations of national or regional frameworks, and I hope we can contribute from our experience.

Yoichi Iida · Jul 7, 2026 · full quote
The thing that we need to invest on and do as a committee here is build that meta-model that is required for the controls mapping at the lowest level, and build that knowledge graph that can then use as a basis for our interoperability models.

Syed Ahmed · Jul 7, 2026 · full quote
Without shared evidentiary standards and mutually recognized approaches, we risk parallel regimes that neither protect people nor allow accountability to travel with the technology.

Virginia Dignum · Jul 7, 2026 · full quote

The quotes largely present joint frontier AI development among middle powers and aligned partners as a response to concentrated capability, with expected gains in sovereignty, safety coordination, and broader access. The clearest caution is about the form of cooperation: some participants warn that a single standard could undercut innovation and national interests, while several others favor interoperability and mutual recognition over full harmonization. Much of the debate therefore turns on how to structure collaboration and benefit-sharing across different countries and systems.

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Results (51 votes):

Total (51 votes)

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For (46)

Douglas A. Rediker
Nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution, specializing in foreign policy and the global economy.

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votes For and says:

Middle powers should combine complementary national assets and pool the capabilities that require scale, while preserving national and commercial control over applications, deployment, language, and sector-specific use. Shared efforts could include m...
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Airlangga Hartarto
Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, speaking on AI cooperation and international AI governance.

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votes For and says:

AI should become a bridge for cooperation, not a tool for division. WAICO will also help ensure AI is managed in a safe, trustworthy, and ethical manner.
AI Verified source (Jul 18, 2026)

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Angga Raka Prabowo
Indonesia’s Deputy Minister of Communication and Digital Affairs, speaking on international AI governance and cooperation.

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votes For and says:

AI cooperation must deliver tangible benefits, support micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), preserve local languages, and address the needs of developing countries.
AI Verified source (Jul 18, 2026)

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António Guterres
UN Secretary-General

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votes For and says:

Technology that will shape the future of humanity must be shaped by all humanity. It cannot be governed by a handful of countries or a handful of companies. Every nation needs a seat at the table.
AI Verified source (Jul 17, 2026)

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Xi Jinping
President of the People's Republic of China.

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The development of artificial intelligence should not be a solo performance by any single country but rather a symphony of global cooperation.
AI Verified source (Jul 17, 2026)

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Hun Manet
Prime Minister of Cambodia, speaking on international AI cooperation and equitable access at the 2026 World AI Conference.

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As one of the first signatories to the Agreement on the Establishment of the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organisation, Cambodia stands ready to work shoulder to shoulder with China and all partners in advancing an AI future that is inno...
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Government of Tajikistan
National government of Tajikistan, represented by its Minister for Economy and Trade at a UN AI-development discussion.

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votes For and says:

Therefore, ensuring equitable access to AI technologies, strengthening capacity building, and promoting international cooperation must remain at the center of our collective efforts.
AI Verified source (Jul 15, 2026)

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Anton Leicht
Visiting scholar at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; researcher on the political economy of AI

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votes For and says:

I think what you do is you set up the biggest possible thing you can. You don’t start small, you don’t start with giving money to any existing institution. You build an actual coalition that has enough money, that has enough leverage, that has enough...
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Anneliese Dodds
UK Labour Member of Parliament for Oxford East; former Chair of the Labour Party.

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votes For and says:

We must also work more concertedly with allies to develop joint sovereign capability. AI development needs to be part of an economic security reset with the EU, and we need to be able to participate in the Scaleup Europe Fund.
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Universal Postal Union
United Nations specialized agency for the postal sector, representing postal governance across 192 member states.

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Without a shared governance baseline, AI in our sector might develop in proprietary and uneven ways, deepening the very divides the panel describes and leaving smaller and developing country operators behind.
AI Verified source (Jul 7, 2026)

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Virginia Dignum
Professor of Responsible Artificial Intelligence at Umeå University; AI ethics expert

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Without shared evidentiary standards and mutually recognized approaches, we risk parallel regimes that neither protect people nor allow accountability to travel with the technology.
AI Verified source (Jul 7, 2026)

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Leonardo Cervera Navas
Director General of the European Data Protection Supervisor, speaking at the UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance in July 2026.

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The unprecedented concentration of wealth and economic power that we see in the development of AI needs to be balanced with a similar concentration of state power and moral purpose and responsibility, because technology must serve mankind and not the...
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Melat Bilge Demirkoz
Member of the UN Independent International Scientific Panel on AI; physicist and researcher.

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Because we lack a unified independent evidence that is outside of the companies that are developing these models, this undermines public trust and objective accountability of these companies.
AI Verified source (Jul 7, 2026)

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Syed Ahmed
Global systems integrator executive at Infosys, speaking on AI-governance interoperability and standards.

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votes For and says:

The thing that we need to invest on and do as a committee here is build that meta-model that is required for the controls mapping at the lowest level, and build that knowledge graph that can then use as a basis for our interoperability models.
AI Verified source (Jul 7, 2026)

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Yoichi Iida
Advisor at Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and visiting professor at the University of Tokyo.

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So I think similar work can be applied to different combinations of national or regional frameworks, and I hope we can contribute from our experience.
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Rebecca Finlay
CEO of Partnership on AI.

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votes For and says:

At the Partnership on AI, we believe that no single country, government, nonprofit, nor research institution can divine on its own what safe, secure, and trustworthy AI looks like.
AI Verified source (Jul 7, 2026)

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Paula Bragantes Zamora
Costa Rican diplomat who co-chaired the UN Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Governance in July 2026.

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Before 2027 dialogue, we should advance shared terminology, comparable risk classifications, consistent documentation, interoperable incident reporting, and multilingual evaluation methods, while building pathways towards mutual recognition of testin...
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World Intellectual Property Organization
United Nations specialized agency for intellectual property, speaking on cross-border AI-governance interoperability.

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votes For and says:

AI governance faces much the same challenge. As AI systems increasingly operate across borders, countries will continue to develop different laws, different regulatory traditions, and different policy priorities. Harmonization is neither realistic no...
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United Nations Resident Coordinator Office
United Nations Resident Coordinator system, represented at the UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance by five resident coordinators.

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votes For and says:

Advanced AI capabilities, computing infrastructure, and investment remain concentrated among a limited number of actors. Inclusive governance must ensure that all countries have the capacity and voice to shape how AI is developed, deployed, and regul...
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Franco Giandana Di Gena
Policy analyst at Access Now.

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votes For and says:

Finally, the current geopolitical landscape presents an opportunity for global majority regions as well as middle powers to seek and foster collaboration and join resources in an unprecedented fashion.
AI Verified source (Jul 7, 2026)

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Gonzalo Matias
Portuguese minister in the Cabinet of the Prime Minister and for State Reform who spoke at the UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance in July 2026.

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An example of, of that is the joint project with Spain to receive one of the European AI gigafactories, making the Iberian Peninsula a hub for AI sustainable production and digital sovereignty.
AI Verified source (Jul 6, 2026)

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Willemijn Aerdts
Dutch State Secretary for Digital Economy and Sovereignty.

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Door samen met Europese partners te investeren in AI versterken we onze economie én onze digitale soevereiniteit.
AI Verified source (Jul 3, 2026)

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Tom Berendsen
Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, speaking on the Netherlands' international strategy for safe and responsible AI.

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Landen die nu investeren in AI schrijven de spelregels voor de economie, veiligheid en informatiestromen van morgen. Als middelgrote open economie met een grote internationale voetafdruk kan Nederland de AI-spelregels op een verantwoorde manier helpe...
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Emmanuel Macron
President of France

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So let us move forward together. Our relevant agencies must first cooperate so that, in the areas of security and cybersecurity, we have a smooth government-to-government relationship.
AI Verified source (Jun 17, 2026)

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Mark Carney
Prime Minister of Canada; former Governor of the Bank of England and Bank of Canada

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votes For and says:

In a world of great power rivalry, middle powers have a choice: to compete for favour or to combine to create a third path with impact. The nations that invest in their own capabilities across strategic sectors – and partner with like-minded allies –...
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Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada
Government of Canada department responsible for innovation, science, and economic development.

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votes For and says:

A coalition of aligned democracies, who pool research, talent, compute, and procurement power, would offer a credible alternative to the dominant market actors that increasingly define the global AI landscape.
AI Verified source (Jun 8, 2026)

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Branka Marijan
Senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and senior researcher at Project Ploughshares.

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Canada should use these partnerships to pursue shared computing infrastructure, joint research initiatives, common standards for trustworthy AI and coordinated approaches to technology governance.
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Government of Canada
Federal government of Canada

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A coalition of aligned democracies, who pool research, talent, compute, and procurement power, would offer a credible alternative to the dominant market actors that increasingly define the global AI landscape. Canada is uniquely positioned to lead su...
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Egriselda López
Permanent Representative of El Salvador to the United Nations and co-chair of the Global Dialogue on AI Governance.

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The dialogue was established as a UN platform involving governments and all relevant stakeholders to support international cooperation and to share lessons learned and to discuss how AI can contribute to sustainable development and actually help clos...
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Against (1)

Nof Alhamli
Science and Technology Advisor at the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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votes Against and says:

The answer isn't convergence for its own sake. We can push too hard on one thing. But if you have one standard, you could risk a lowest common denominator outcome that can cost us the innovation system as well and might have a risk on the national in...
more AI Verified source (Jul 7, 2026)

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More h/open-source votes

Require frontier AI labs to conduct nearly all R&D publicly but keep the weights closed

Open-source AI is more dangerous than closed-source AI

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