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      Artificial intelligence is shaping today how economies grow, how companies compete, and how societies build trust.

      Decisions are increasingly being made under conditions of high uncertainty – often without reliable, structured future scenarios that systematically show how the global AI environment could develop.

      This is precisely where our English-language study ‘AI Geopolitics 2030: The new power distribution through strategic AI sovereignty’ comes in, which was produced in collaboration with the German AI Association.

      AI Geopolitics 2030

      How AI is changing the global distribution of power – and what strategic options Europe has. 

      Globe

      Why AI leadership is more than technological excellence

      Our Strategic AI Capability Index (SACI) enables a comparison of the AI capabilities of the United States, Europe and China.

      The index is based on three pillars – economy & infrastructure, strategy & governance, and research, development & skills – and combines a global survey with in-depth secondary research.

      All results are standardised on a scale of 0 to 100, enabling robust, cross-regional comparisons for strategic decision-making.

      Strategic AI Capability Index: A meaningful basis for strategic AI comparisons

      The index shows a clear pattern: lasting AI leadership does not come from isolated technological breakthroughs, but from the ability to transform potential into impact – consistently, responsibly and on a large scale.

      The most important findings of the current survey in concrete figures

      The results of the study show:

      • The US leads in AI capabilities with a score of 75.2 points, driven by rapid corporate adoption, deep capital markets and scalable infrastructure. 

      • Europe scores 48.7 points – strong in governance and responsible AI, but held back by fragmentation and slow commercialisation. 

      • China is close behind with 48.2 points: impressive industrial capabilities and hardware sovereignty, but less international openness and less public trust. 


      Fig1_overall results

      Scenarios for 2040: Four possible visions of the future of AI

      Based on the SACI index, the study analyses possible development paths for global AI architecture and condenses them into four scenarios for 2040. The four scenarios cover two key dimensions:

      • the distribution of AI power (distributed vs. centralised), and
      • the geopolitical order (cooperative vs. fragmented).