Japan Is a Critical Partner for U.S. in AI Competition with China

The United States faces a great-power competition with China over a wide variety of issues, one of the most urgent of which is the race to develop, deploy, and capture the gains from artificial intelligence (AI). A key advantage in this competition is the U.S. network of allies and partners, such as Japan, that share U.S. values and threat perceptions and possess advanced AI themselves, control key inputs into the AI supply chain, can admit or restrict access to their own market for AI, are able to help shape emerging global norms and technology standards governing AI, and have their own relationships with powerful third countries that have inputs and access to parts of the AI supply chain. To ensure that what may prove to be the most consequential technology in human history is not dominated by China, the United States should work closely with Japan on advanced AI.

This paper is intended for a broad audience of policymakers and national security and technology experts and researchers as they grapple with how best to advance U.S. national security interests in the face of rapid improvements in AI and developments in U.S. relationships in the Indo-Pacific.