Show Notes
Sovereign AI: The Geopolitical Weapon Being Built Right Now
Influential Visions with Nat Schooler
The foundation model era is over. The sovereign AI era has begun. Every serious nation on the planet is now racing to build its own AI stack — controlling the energy, the compute, the data, and the rules. Because relying on foreign AI infrastructure is no longer a tech decision. It is a national security decision. In this episode, ex-IBM Futurist Nat Schooler breaks down what is actually happening behind the headlines — and why most of what you are being told is wrong. What we cover:
The USA outspent China 23 to 1 last year. The gap between their best models is under 3%. Spending is not winning this race. Data centres now consume more electricity than the entire United Kingdom. China is launching satellite data centres into space. Europe is heating homes with server waste heat. This is a physical infrastructure war. India is building frugal AI — multilingual, sovereign, built for a billion people. Not brute force. Precision. 80% of AI running inside businesses is completely invisible to the board. Klarna gutted its customer service with AI. It quietly rehired humans when quality collapsed. Companion chatbots engineered to maximise engagement have talked vulnerable people into taking their own lives. Zero corporate accountability. Zero regulatory framework. And through all of it — one thing remains that no model can replicate. Trust. Accountability. Relationships. The human moat. Next episode: The American AI story — with a guest who has been working with AI and data since the 1980s. Before the hype. Before the billions. Before ChatGPT existed. Know someone from the USA or Estonia we should speak to? Email us: [email protected]
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sovereign AI, digital sovereignty, AI geopolitics, future of work, AI jobs, human moat, AI infrastructure, Nat Schooler, Influential Visions, Monday Influencer
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