India’s growing prominence as a technological and strategic partner was a central theme this week in Washington, where top US lawmakers and experts warned that the global race for artificial intelligence is entering a decisive and highly contested phase. Their concerns focused on China’s accelerating push to embed AI across civilian, industrial, and military systems—an expansion they believe could reshape global power balances.
During a Senate hearing on December 2, members of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy examined how China’s rapid AI progress intersects with geopolitics, defence innovation, and semiconductor access. While the discussion largely revolved around export controls and security risks, India emerged as a vital partner in building a trusted AI ecosystem.
Tarun Chhabra, formerly a White House national security official and now with Anthropic, stressed that democratic coordination will be essential in the next few years, which he described as a “critical window” for frontier AI. Pointing to the global AI summits, he noted that India’s upcoming summit in February 2026 offers a strong platform for shaping shared rules, technical safeguards, and cooperative frameworks. He also warned that China cannot advance without U.S.-grade chips and urged vigilance to prevent “CCP-controlled companies” from accessing American hardware.
Senators Pete Ricketts and Chris Coons compared the current AI competition to historic turning points like the Cold War space race. Ricketts described AI as a technology that will remodel everyday life and military strength, cautioning that Beijing intends to merge civilian and defence AI to dominate the next major military transformation. Coons argued that leadership must rest on “our chips, our cloud, and our models,” highlighting the intensity of China’s investment and its ambition to lead global AI by 2030.
Experts at the hearing warned that China’s military is already integrating AI at scale. Chris Miller of AEI explained that AI-driven intelligence analysis is becoming routine in modern warfare, with Ukraine and Russia using it extensively. He said U.S. advantage rests on three foundations—electrical power, computing power, and human expertise—which must be maintained.
Gregory Allen of CSIS called export controls the single most impactful action taken to preserve technological dominance, claiming that without them, China would host the world’s largest data centers by now. He firmly opposed giving Chinese companies cloud access to US systems, warning it would enable them to build parallel platforms.
James Mulvenon added that China’s PLA is embedding language models throughout its command structure and is determined to obtain Western chips through global smuggling networks. All witnesses unanimously rejected any move to export NVIDIA’s Blackwell or H-200 chips, calling them technologies that would hand Beijing a “bridge to the future” it cannot build alone.
