“Norm-building often begins among like-minded states…”
Director of the Institute for Emerging Technology Strategy, Prof. Daniel Okoye, analyzes strategic AI competition, export controls, and the emerging architecture of global AI governance.
Prof. Daniel Okoye is Director at the Institute for Emerging Technology Strategy (IETS), Abuja.
Observer Voices: Artificial intelligence has become central to geopolitical competition. How would you characterize the current strategic landscape?
Daniel Okoye: AI has transitioned from a commercial innovation domain to a strategic infrastructure asset. Its applications—defense logistics, intelligence analysis, autonomous systems, industrial optimization—make it foundational to national power.
The competitive landscape is shaped by compute capacity, semiconductor access, and talent concentration. Export controls on advanced chips and investment screening mechanisms indicate that AI is now treated as a national security variable.
Observer Voices: Is a global AI governance framework feasible?
Daniel Okoye: Feasible, but limited. Unlike nuclear technology, AI is diffuse and commercially embedded. Comprehensive prohibition regimes are unrealistic. What is achievable are norms—restrictions on autonomous lethal systems without meaningful human oversight, transparency in high-risk civilian applications, and shared incident reporting mechanisms.
Norm-building often begins among like-minded states before broadening.
Observer Voices: How does AI reshape economic power?
Daniel Okoye: Productivity gains will likely concentrate in economies capable of integrating AI into manufacturing, logistics, and services at scale. However, without workforce transition strategies, displacement pressures could destabilize domestic politics.
The strategic question is not whether AI will transform economies, but which states will manage the social consequences most effectively.
Observer Voices: As AI capabilities advance rapidly, which single policy decision made in the next five years will most influence whether AI becomes a stabilizing or destabilizing force in international relations?
Daniel Okoye: The decisive variable will be whether leading AI powers institutionalize limits on autonomous military deployment. If states embed meaningful human oversight into doctrines governing lethal autonomous systems, escalation risks can be managed.
However, if competitive pressures incentivize rapid deployment without normative guardrails, crisis stability will erode. The window for shaping AI’s strategic trajectory is narrow; once operational doctrines harden, reversal becomes politically and militarily costly.
Observer Vox 