The Geopolitics of Technology

The Geopolitics of Technology

Technology is now the primary arena of great-power competition. The contest between the US and China for technological dominance is reshaping trade, diplomacy, military planning, and the structure of the global internet in ways that will define the next 50 years.

Why Semiconductors Are the Central Battleground

Advanced semiconductors — the chips manufactured at nanometer-scale tolerances that power AI, smartphones, military systems, and everything in between — are extraordinarily difficult to produce. The knowledge, tooling, and supply chain required to manufacture cutting-edge chips has taken decades to build and is concentrated in a handful of locations.

The current landscape:

• Design: US companies (Intel, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, AMD) design the most advanced chips. ARM (UK, now partially owned by SoftBank Japan) licenses chip architectures used in most mobile devices
• Manufacturing (Fabrication): TSMC (Taiwan) manufactures the most advanced chips for almost everyone — including Apple, NVIDIA, AMD, and until recently, Chinese companies. Samsung (South Korea) manufactures advanced chips for its own use and others
• Equipment: ASML (Netherlands) makes the Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines required to manufacture chips at the most advanced nodes — and ASML is the only company in the world that can. Carl Zeiss (Germany) makes the optics inside those machines
• Materials: Japan dominates specialized semiconductor materials (silicon wafers, photoresists, specialty gases)

The US export controls imposed in 2022-2023 cut off China's access to advanced chips and — critically — to the equipment needed to manufacture them. China cannot currently buy EUV machines from ASML (the Dutch government denied export licenses under US pressure), cannot access NVIDIA's advanced AI training chips, and cannot recruit from certain US university programs in AI and semiconductor engineering.

China's Response: Self-Sufficiency Push

China's response to US technological pressure is an unprecedented national effort to achieve semiconductor self-sufficiency under its "big fund" program:

• State investment of hundreds of billions of dollars in domestic semiconductor capacity
• Massive recruitment of overseas Chinese engineers and scientists
• Government procurement mandates favoring domestic chips in less sensitive applications
• Focus on mature node chips (less advanced but still essential for most electronics) where Chinese manufacturers are closer to competitive

China's SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation) has made progress in advanced manufacturing, reportedly achieving 7nm production through techniques that do not require EUV machines — though at lower yield and higher cost than TSMC.

The consensus among semiconductor analysts: China will close some of the gap, but the most advanced manufacturing will remain outside China's reach for at least a decade given the equipment restrictions.

The 5G Battleground

Huawei was, before US export controls, the world's leading 5G equipment manufacturer — offering comparable technology to Ericsson and Nokia at lower cost. US restrictions on Huawei (cutting off its access to advanced chips and US software) significantly damaged its mobile phone business but its 5G infrastructure business has continued, particularly in countries willing to accept Chinese equipment.

The 5G decision matters because the company that builds your telecommunications backbone has visibility into your communications infrastructure. US pressure on allies to exclude Huawei from 5G networks has been successful in most of Europe, the UK, Australia, Japan, and Canada — creating a clear division between countries that use Western 5G infrastructure and those that use Chinese.

The Internet Splits

The "splinternet" is the emerging division of the global internet into distinct ecosystems:

• The Western internet, governed primarily by US technology platforms and the GDPR-influenced privacy framework
• The Chinese internet (already largely separate through the Great Firewall — Google, Meta, Twitter, WhatsApp, and most Western platforms are blocked in China, replaced by domestic equivalents)
• A contested middle space in Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America where both ecosystems compete

Countries adopting Chinese digital infrastructure — whether Huawei 5G networks, Alibaba cloud services, or Tencent payment systems — become more integrated into the Chinese technology ecosystem and more resistant to Western network rules.

What Small Nations Should Understand

For Jamaica and CARICOM nations, the technology geopolitics create real decisions:

• 5G network choices: Which vendor builds your telecommunications infrastructure matters for security and for which ecosystem you are integrated with
• Digital payments and financial technology: Chinese fintech companies expanding into the Caribbean, alongside Western competitors, create market choices with geopolitical implications
• Data partnerships: Research data partnerships with Chinese and US institutions bring access to expertise and funding alongside complex intellectual property and security considerations

The strategic advice for small nations: maintain relationships with multiple technology blocs rather than aligning exclusively with either. The leverage of being genuinely nonaligned in a bipolar tech world — able to deal with both sides — is a form of geopolitical value that large nations cannot easily replicate.