Chinese and US AI and cloud transnational corporations in Latin America

VILA SEOANE, MAXIMILIANO FACUNDO

Towards an International Political Economy of Artificial Intelligence

Palgrave Macmillan

Año: 2021;

Based on Neo-Gramscian perspectives, this chapter examinesthe strategies of Chinese and US transnational corporations to expand AI andthe cloud to Latin America. The main argument is that the spread of thesedigital technologies will not necessarily usher a new era of abundance norgenerate a new condition of dependence, but rather accentuate problematicprocesses of uneven and combined development in the region. This is aconsequence of the ongoing war on positions between Chinese and US transnationalcorporations to spread and govern AI and the cloud in the region, which so faris targeted to the most resourceful actors. Finally, the chapter outlines theimplications of the strategies employed by states and civil society in LatinAmerica to relate with these corporate strategies.