I write about AI and Geopolitics
Bill Friend Four Years of U.S. Chip Controls and What China Built Instead Washington built a wall to keep China off the AI frontier. China went around it, under it, and eventually started building its own version of the wall out of the rubble. That’s the short version of a four-year story that’s still unfolding, and it’s … Read more
Two questions get asked together so often that they can sound like one question. They aren’t. “Where is AI headed?” is a question about engineering — about what frontier labs can build next. “Can the world’s nations keep up?” is a question about power — about who can afford to build it, who controls the … Read more
Introduction Fort Foundry One is a proposed joint US–Israeli technological and industrial park, announced in early 2026, intended to serve as a hub for chip production, advanced computing, and AI development. It forms part of a strategic cooperation agreement on AI between Israel and the United States. Under a memorandum of understanding, Israel is to … Read more
The devastating crisis now unfolding in Cuba is not, in my view, a humanitarian mission. The stated case for the current U.S. campaign is familiar and, on its own terms, coherent: the regime’s repression of its own people, its long alignment with Russia and China, and its entanglement with a collapsing Venezuela. I do not … Read more
I asked eight AI models to present the strongest arguments for and against continuing frontier AI development or pausing it until society is better prepared. The debate wasn’t simply “build” or “stop,” but whether AI should advance under private competition without mandatory public controls on evaluation, release, security, liability, and deployment. The pause side offered … Read more