Not disputes and not cases: places where a state's AI-governance memberships, trade agreements and procurement choices pull against each other, and where another state has said so in public. Each entry names the two commitments, the dated events and their sources, and a status. Rings measure how far it has gone; the arena says where. The radar is read monthly and a blip moves against the previous edition.
Radar, November 2026
Watch two commitments in tension, no act by anyone yet
Signal a public statement or report pointing at the tension
Warning a formal notice: a letter, a demarche, a draft note reported by a wire
Measure a concrete act: an entity listing, a sanction, a tariff, a withdrawn contract
Rupture a membership ended, an agreement suspended or denounced
Kazakhstan's Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development posts a draft act on signing the WAICO founding agreement, three days after signing the Pax Silica Declaration. The draft gives its purpose as Kazakhstan's participation as a founding state; public discussion closes on 15 July. Draft act, legalacts.egov.kz, 29 Jun 2026 ↗
Reuters reports an undated draft note from the US State Department to the 35 states that had then signed the AI Opportunity Statement. Signature of the Declaration is called a commitment rather than a membership subscription; membership is said to be incompatible with duplicative initiatives whose expectations conflict with US expectations; signatories are asked to choose deliberately. The Department calls it a purportedly leaked internal document. Reuters, 14 Aug 2026, via TechTimes ↗
RFE/RL reports Kazakhstan as the only state in both frameworks and describes the pressure to choose; no formal response from Astana is on the record. RFE/RL, 13 Sep 2026 ↗
Nvidia says Firebird has secured a US export licence for 45,000 Grace Blackwell GPUs for Kazakhstan, the first phase of its data centre under construction with Kazakhtelecom. The announcement comes during Jensen Huang's meeting with President Tokayev in Astana. The Commerce Department does not publish licences, so the licence rests on the company's statement. Nvidia blog, 22 Oct 2026 ↗
The note is undated and unconfirmed by its author, so the entry sits at Warning as Reported. The statement it was addressed to had 35 signatories then and 54 by September 2026. The October licence is a US act in the other direction and holds the blip in place. The entry moves to Confirmed on a Department release, and inward on any act against a signatory.
Other party: United States · First seen 2026-08-14 · Last change 2026-10-22
Opposition leader Zdravko Ponoš asks why a minister in a caretaker mandate signed the US statement now, and whether the government reviewed it. He places the statement within the US Pax Silica project and calls Pax Silica and WAICO "in a rival relationship" (our translation), which he calls a problem. No government response is reported. N1, 2 Oct 2026 ↗
An opposition leader's statement is the only act on the record, so the entry sits at Signal as Reported. He named Pax Silica as the rival of WAICO; the instrument Serbia signed is the statement, whose signatories commit to aligning supply chains with Pax Silica economies. The entry moves inward on any act by Washington or Beijing toward the pair.
Other party: United States · First seen 2026-10-02 · Last change 2026-10-02
Malaysia endorses the AI Opportunity Statement, one of 19 states added during the UN General Assembly's high-level week. Absent from the 35 signatories the Department listed in June, it is listed among the 54 endorsing states by September. State Department, AI Opportunity Statement ↗
Both commitments are on the primary record, so the entry is Confirmed; no act by either side points at the pair, so it is a Watch. The draft note reported on 14 August, which asked the statement's signatories to choose deliberately, predates Malaysia's endorsement. The entry moves to Signal when either side says the two sit in tension.
Other party: United States · First seen 2026-09 · Last change 2026-09
MYMalaysiaSignalComputeReported
A chip choice against three clauses of its trade agreement
The US Bureau of Industry and Security issues guidance under General Prohibition 10 naming the Ascend 910B, 910C and 910D as chips presumptively produced in violation of US export controls; its first release said use anywhere in the world violates the controls, wording the Bureau later removed. BIS guidance, 13 May 2025 ↗
After the US Supreme Court's February ruling against tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, trade minister Johari Abdul Ghani is reported saying of the agreement: "It is not on hold. It is no longer there, it's null and void." The agreement enters into force 60 days after the parties exchange written notifications that their legal procedures are complete (Article 7.2). No exchange and no formal notice from either party is on the record. The Star, 16 Mar 2026 ↗
Bloomberg reports Malaysia eyeing Huawei chips for the sovereign AI project despite the US warning, with the CLOUD Act given as the reason for avoiding US suppliers. Free Malaysia Today and Digitimes carry the same the next day; officials decline to comment. Bloomberg, 7 Sep 2026 ↗
Peter Harrell (Georgetown) reads the deal against the agreement: data centres fall inside the positive obligation on telecommunications and infrastructure investment; Article 5.2(2) speaks of restricting transactions with Entity List companies, not only exports to them, and picking Huawei is not restricting transactions; a centre that processes communications or logistics data would sit against the trusted-supplier commitment in the Annex. He notes the provisions are effectively unilateral and discretionary: the US decides whether there is a violation and whether to answer with tariffs, subject to a domestic-law basis. Peter Harrell on X, 7 Sep 2026 ↗
A State Department spokesperson tells Bloomberg: "Secure technology is the foundation of a prosperous economy." Untrusted suppliers, the spokesperson says, "can be manipulated, disrupted or controlled by authoritarian regimes" and "pose a potent threat to critical infrastructure". Neither China nor Huawei is named, and the Department has published no text of the statement. Bloomberg, 7 Sep 2026, via Deccan Chronicle ↗
The South China Morning Post asks whether the deal would clash with the trade pact, reading it against the export-control commitments signed in October 2025. South China Morning Post, 8 Sep 2026 ↗
Tabling Budget 2027, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim says the planned sovereign AI cloud is to keep citizens' data and the country's strategic information under Malaysian control. No supplier is named. The Star, 9 Oct 2026 ↗
On Bernama TV, communications minister Fahmi Fadzil says the government has decided to develop a sovereign AI cloud, citing other countries' policies and laws that could make public clouds less secure for classified information. Malay Mail reports it will be managed by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission and the ministry. No supplier is named. Malay Mail, 15 Oct 2026 ↗
KLIA customs announce the seizure, on 15 October, of 30 servers with advanced AI chips worth nearly RM49.5 million, in transit through the free trade zone without the permit required under the Strategic Trade Act 2010 and a 2025 directive of the Strategic Trade Controller. Chip brands, origin and destination are not disclosed while the investigation runs. Bernama, 28 Oct 2026 ↗
No US act toward Malaysia on this is on the record, so the entry sits at Signal. The agreement is signed and not in force, and Malaysia's trade minister calls it void. Once in force, its enforcement is unilateral: Article 7.4(2) lets a party act under its domestic law, with no dispute settlement. The October seizure cuts the other way, Malaysia enforcing its own export permits. A notification under Article 5.1, or a tariff, would move the blip inward.
Other party: United States · First seen 2026-09-07 · Last change 2026-10-28
ID KH BDIndonesia, Cambodia, BangladeshWatchTradeReported
The Peterson Institute reads the nine signed agreements as built to push partners away from China, with penalty clauses discouraging deeper economic alignment with China. No party has invoked a clause. PIIE, 4 Jun 2026 ↗
A pair of commitments and no act, so a Watch. It moves to Signal when either side says the two sit in tension.
Other party: United States · First seen 2026-06-04 · Last change 2026-06-04
CNChinaSignalComputeReported
Huawei's data-centre bid abroad, against US controls
Bloomberg reports Huawei's bid to build Egypt's AI data centres on 1,408 Ascend 950 chips plus 600 more, and Washington weighing a counter-offer. Bloomberg, 26 Aug 2026 ↗
Huawei Cloud's chief executive, Zhou Yuefeng, says at Huawei Connect 2026 that its Ascend 950 AI cluster cloud service opens commercially in China on 30 September and expands to global markets on 30 November. No market outside China is named. TechNode, 18 Sep 2026 ↗
During Sultan Haitham bin Tarik's state visit to China, Huawei agrees to work with Omantel and Oman's Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology on Ascend neural processing units, among the deals signed at an investment forum. Arab News, 2 Nov 2026 ↗
The entry is China's, at Signal, until a US act names a bid. Egypt is not an observatory state and appears as the buyer. Oman appears in the events only: no US commitment of its own was found to sit against the Ascend work, so it carries no blip.
Other party: United States; Egypt as the buyer · First seen 2026-08-26 · Last change 2026-11-02
How to read the radar
Rings, outer to inner
Watch. Two commitments in tension, no act by anyone yet.
Signal. A public statement or report pointing at the tension.
Warning. A formal notice: a letter, a demarche, a draft note reported by a wire.
Measure. A concrete act: an entity listing, a sanction, a tariff, a withdrawn contract.
Rupture. A membership ended, an agreement suspended or denounced.
Arenas
Alignment. Blocs and memberships: Pax Silica, WAICO, the AI Opportunity Statement.
Compute. Chips, export controls, data centres, cloud.
Reported. The act rests on press or wire reporting; no primary text yet.
Confirmed. A party's own release or the instrument itself is on the record.
Denied. A party has denied the act or the tension.
Resolved. One of the two commitments has given way.
Method
An entry needs two identifiable commitments and one dated public act by a party pointing at the other. A pair of commitments with no act is a Watch, never higher.
Reported until a primary text exists. A leaked and undated note carried by a wire is Reported; the ministry's own release is Confirmed. Headlines do not upgrade a status.
The observatory never writes breach, violation or contravention in its own voice unless a party or a tribunal used the word. The entry names the clause in tension and leaves the conclusion to the reader.
Every instrument named is linked, to the country edition where it carries the instrument, otherwise to the primary text. Every blip involves at least one of the thirty-one states covered by this series; other states appear only as the other party.
Independent research and educational profiles; not affiliated with, or endorsed by, any government or organisation named here.
An independent research and educational project. Information is provided as-is, may be incomplete, and does not constitute legal advice.