Sovereignty Exhaustion: New Vocabularies for Global AI Value Chains

Analytically, it no longer captures the geopolitics of AI in all its complexities. Politically, it traps debate in repetitive and increasingly exhausting terms, conflating different struggles and frameworks in a single word. No single actor owns the full AI stack. Instead, AI systems are built through interdependent global value chains that link workers, chips, machines, software, standards, minerals, and markets. The workshop asks: Where, when, and under what conditions do interdependencies in global AI value chains become politically actionable? Bringing together comparative perspectives, the workshop foregrounds the need for new vocabularies for understanding power in global AI value chains. Rather than assuming that control comes from owning the whole stack, it examines how leverage is exercised at specific points in global AI infrastructures, where interdependencies can be negotiated, constrained, or weaponized.

Registration: If interested in participating (no input or presentation needed), please contact Daniel Schneiß: daniel.schneiss[at]weizenbaum-institut.de

Organiser: Daniel Schneiß (Weizenbaum Institute), Fabian Ferrari (Univeristy of Utrecht), Rafael Grohman (Univeristy of Toronto)