Only Full Stack Control Wins the ‘AI War’
And why the U.S. and China Are Converging on Strategy
India: AI leadership for the Global South?
AI I was in India this week, speaking on how the country might position itself as an AI leader for the Global South.
Landing in Bangalore, the impact of technology on the economy is immediately palpable. On the nighttime drive to the old city, the highway was flanked by gleaming high-rises, with logos like Deutsche Bank and PwC glowing at the top—monuments to India's ascent as a tech-powered service economy.
I had asked my husband about his last trip to Bangalore, twenty years ago—then more of a waypoint en route to the ancient temples of Mysore. Back then, none of this existed. It's hard to overstate how radically technology has transformed this city, now renowned as the beating heart of India's STEM and IT talent.
So the idea that India might claim leadership for the Global South in AI makes sense—at least on the surface. But scratch beneath the surface of this impressive transformation, and a different picture emerges. The hard truth is this: India will not become an AI superpower unless it becomes far more intentional and strategic about its ambitions.
To lead in AI (and exponential technology) is not only about building apps, incubating startups or supporting frontier model development. It is about reshaping an entire national industrial base to command the most strategic technology of the 21st century. And the prize—as I've said often enough—is about power.
Economic, military, and the power to innovate.
Full-Stack Control
Power in AI comes only through what I call Full Stack Control: sovereignty across every layer of the AI value chain—from energy and raw materials, through chips and data, to models, infrastructure, and global deployment. Full Stack Control isn't just a tech strategy—it's the foundation for long-term geopolitical advantage, determining which nations will set the rules, standards, and terms of global influence in the decades to come.
This isn't a new playbook. Technological supremacy as a route to geopolitical dominance is the story of history. I spent my 24-hour flight back to the U.S. geeking out on a podcast series on the Opium Wars—it was Britain's superior technology (naval/weapons) that were the prelude to China's "century of humiliation." Technological leadership has always been a gateway to shaping the global order.
The Full Stack Control Pyramid
1. Foundational Base
Energy: Cheap, reliable, increasingly green
Raw Materials: Rare earths, silicon, copper, lithium
Manufacturing: Chips, batteries, sensors, robotics
Infrastructure: Fiber networks, data centers, energy grids, logistics systems
2. Compute & Hardware
Chip Design: GPUs, TPUs, custom silicon — think Nvidia, Samsung
Fabrication: TSMC-level precision engineering and packaging
Cloud & Supercomputing: Sovereign hyperscale compute capacity
3. Data Layer
Sovereign Data Sets: Healthcare, education, defense, geospatial, industrial
Data Infrastructure: Collection, cleaning, annotation, synthetic generation
Governance: Legal and technical frameworks for access, control, and trust
4. AI Operating System
Models: LLMs, agents, multi-modal architectures
Tooling: Training pipelines, deployment platforms, safety protocols
Ecosystem: The AI OS others build on top of—open-source or closed
5. Strategic Deployment
Industrial Use: AI in manufacturing, energy, logistics, R&D
State Use: Healthcare, education, tax, surveillance, governance
Defense: ISR, autonomous systems, cyber operations, drone warfare
6. Geopolitical Projection
Standard Setting: Exporting norms, safety, and governance frameworks
Export Controls: Who gets access to what—and who gets locked out
Alliances & Influence: Trade blocs, global norms, infrastructure dominance
Strategic Enablers (Cross-Cutting)
Talent: Global pipelines, domestic education, elite research clusters
Capital: Sovereign wealth, venture ecosystems, long-horizon funding
Institutions: Universities, labs, public-private accelerators
Environment: Governance agility, trust, regulatory stability
US and China: The Full Stack Players Converge
There's a real reason the AI Superpowers conversation is only ever about the U.S. and China. They are the only two serious Full Stack players in this race, and the reasons are almost deterministic. Europe, while theoretically a potential third contender, faces an inherent systemic disadvantage that neither China nor the U.S. have: it's not a sovereign state, but a bloc of 27 nation states. It lacks the cohesion and unity to execute at this scale. It may have many of the raw ingredients, but it doesn't have the governance structure to dominate in its existing advantages or to aggressively develop the parts of the stack where it is weak. Geopolitically, it is untethered—neither fully aligned with the U.S. nor China, nor able to form a rival bloc.
Both the U.S. and China are contenders in the full-stack pyramid, although each has its own strategic disadvantages. The problem for the U.S. is in Layer 1—due to globalization and international supply chains, it is almost 100% exposed (mostly to China) on manufacturing and industrial production. China, on the other hand, is severely hampered by its lack of semiconductor sovereignty (hence the export controls).
What's fascinating is the convergence in strategy we're seeing in both Beijing and Washington, even though their tactics and methods differ dramatically. China's model of state and public partnership is nothing new, but it's being reinvigorated in the U.S. With Trump's ascendancy, a very different tone is being struck about American leadership in AI and technology dominance.
Both Beijing and Washington understand that Full Stack Control isn't a government-only project. It requires a sustained, ambitious partnership between government and private innovation—a reality they've each operationalized in their own way. "Full Stack Control" is fundamentally a public-private game. This is central to making any of it happen, and perhaps the greatest irony is that despite the clichés—China as top-down, the U.S. as bottom-up—the reality is more nuanced.
The uncomfortable truth that neither Washington nor Beijing wants to acknowledge is how remarkably similar they've become in both their obsession with full stack dominance and their methods for achieving it. Both are betting everything on innovation as the ultimate differentiator. Both are marshaling unprecedented public-private partnerships to secure their position. Both understand that controlling the AI stack isn't just about technology—it's about writing the rules for the next century of global power.
They are more alike in their ambitions and approaches than anyone would like to admit. And that convergence, more than any philosophical difference, may be the defining characteristic of this new era of technological competition.
Next week, I'll dive deeper into how each nation—the U.S., China, Europe, India, the Gulf states, and others—actually stacks up across these critical layers, and where the opportunities for asymmetric advantage might lie for those willing to think strategically about their position in this new world order.