A New Nationalism of Tech

There is an article from the U.S. State Department which argues that countries should stop trying to build their own artificial intelligence capabilities and instead join ecosystems led by the technological frontier, which today largely means the United States and its allies. It sees national efforts to build local AI infrastructure as wasteful duplication and celebrates a future where the most innovative countries invent while the rest participate in their ecosystems.

There is truth in one part of this argument. No nation can do everything alone. Cooperation is important. The exchange of knowledge, talent, resources, and ideas has always accelerated human progress.

But the article ultimately asks the wrong question. The question should not be:

Which nation will own the future?

The question should be:

What kind of future does humanity wish to build together?

The World Has Changed

For most of modern human history, it made sense to think primarily in terms of kingdoms, empires, and nations. Problems were local. Wars were regional. Famines were contained. One society could collapse while another continued unaffected.

That world no longer exists. Climate change in one country affects the entire atmosphere. A virus discovered in one city can spread across the planet in weeks. Biodiversity loss in one region affects ecosystems everywhere. Financial crises leap across continents in hours. Artificial intelligence developed in one country may transform labor markets across the globe. Nuclear weapons can threaten civilization itself.

The defining contradiction of the twenty-first century is that our problems have become planetary, while our institutions remain national.

We are increasingly living as one interconnected civilization while continuing to think like competing tribes. That way of thinking has got to change if we are to continue as a species on this planet.

The Shared Legacy of Humanity

The article speaks of innovation as though it belongs to particular nations. But human progress has never belonged to one nation.

Everything we enjoy today is the result of countless generations of human beings, living in different places and at different times, contributing pieces to a common inheritance.

Humanity gave us:

• language;

• agriculture;

• mathematics;

• writing;

• philosophy;

• medicine;

• engineering;

• the scientific method;

• electricity;

• vaccines;

• computers;

• the internet;

• modern communications.

No individual created these things. No nation created these things alone. The modern world is the accumulated work of billions of human beings. Even artificial intelligence itself is a global inheritance.

It rests upon:

• mathematics developed in India, the Middle East, and Europe;

• paper invented in China;

• scientific methods refined across civilizations;

• computer theories developed in Britain and America;

• minerals extracted in Africa and South America;

• Crops developed there.

• manufacturing expertise built in East Asia;

• data generated by billions of people around the world.

Every child born today inherits this extraordinary treasure. Civilization itself is humanity's greatest collective project.

Innovation Is a Human Achievement Before It Is a National One

The article measures success in terms of:

• profit margins,

• valuations,

• market dominance,

• technological leadership.

These are important metrics for corporations. They are not metrics for humanity. A corporation exists to maximize profit. A nation exists to protect:

• people,

• culture,

• security,

• stability,

• long-term well-being.

Humanity's purpose is larger than this. It is to ensure that our species survives and flourishes. Technology should ultimately be judged by a simple question:

Does it improve the human condition?

A breakthrough that enriches a handful of companies while deepening dependency, inequality, and environmental destruction cannot be the final measure of success.

Why Nations Seek Technological Sovereignty

The article dismisses national AI efforts as duplication. But there is another way to view them. A country that seeks a degree of technological independence is not necessarily trying to dominate others. It may simply be trying to preserve:

• resilience,

• security,

• self-determination,

• the ability to make its own choices.

No country wants to discover during a crisis that its essential technologies are entirely controlled elsewhere. Some duplication is inefficient. Some duplication is insurance. Some duplication is sovereignty.

But There Is a Bigger Question

Perhaps we have reached a point in history where even sovereignty itself is no longer enough because our deepest challenges are shared. No nation can stabilize the climate alone. No nation can protect biodiversity alone. No nation can govern artificial intelligence alone. No nation can prevent nuclear catastrophe alone. 

The age of purely national solutions is slowly ending. This does not mean abolishing nations. It means recognizing that humanity itself has become a political reality.

We already share:

• one atmosphere,

• one biosphere,

• one ocean system,

• one climate,

• one technological civilization,

• one common destiny.

The Earth is not truly divided into 187 separate worlds. It is one sphere, temporarily organized into nations.

A New Idea for the Twenty-First Century

Perhaps the next great political idea is neither nationalism nor global government. Perhaps it is something simpler. And that is, the shared stewardship of our common inheritance.

Every generation receives a gift. They receive the accumulated knowledge, discoveries, institutions, and sacrifices of those who came before.

And every generation has a responsibility. That is to protect and expand that inheritance for those who come after.

The OLD question used to be, which country wins?

The NEW question should be, how do we ensure that humanity wins?

A Different Definition of Progress

True progress may not be measured by who owns the most powerful AI model. It must be measured by whether humanity can use its extraordinary intelligence to:

• reduce suffering,

• preserve the planet,

• distribute opportunity,

• deepen knowledge,

• and build a civilization worthy of the generations that will inherit it.

Because without humanity, without countless human beings contributing their ideas, labor, sacrifices, and discoveries across thousands of years, none of us would have any of this.

Not our technologies, not our wealth, not our comforts, not even the artificial intelligence we are now debating.

Everything we possess rests upon a foundation built by people we will never know.

The way I see it, the greatest act of humanity´s humility in the twenty-first century must be to remember one thing clearly:

We are not merely citizens of nations or customers of corporations. We are heirs to a shared, hundreds of thousands years of human legacy, and trustees of an infinite shared human future.

Thanks for reading. Abrazos.

Diego Rojas