The age of sovereign AI has arrived

India has also recognised that AI cannot be separated from semiconductors. Every AI model ultimately depends upon advanced chips.

- ANIL K. ANTONY

The decision by the United States government to suspend access to Anthropic’s latest artificial intelligence models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, for foreign nationals has sent ripples across the global technology ecosystem.

For developers, startups and enterprises in India that were building products around these frontier models, the announcement created immediate uncertainty. Yet the larger significance of the decision lies elsewhere. It is perhaps one of the clearest signals yet that artificial intelligence is moving from the realm of open innovation into the realm of strategic technology.

For decades, nations competed for access to oil fields, shipping routes and industrial capacity. In recent years, competition has expanded to semiconductors, rare earth minerals and advanced defence technologies. Artificial intelligence is now joining that list. The ability to develop, deploy and control frontier AI models is increasingly being viewed as a source of economic strength, technological leadership and national power. As a result, restrictions, export controls and access limitations are likely to become a recurring feature of the global AI landscape.