Middle Powers Must Win the AI Deployment Race

26 Feb 2026 11:38 AM

Middle powers like the UK and Canada will not win the race for ever larger AI models, but through collaboration they can win the deployment race.

The AI Race is often framed as a contest over which countries – primarily the US and China – can develop ever larger and more powerful models. But this overlooks a more mundane reality: deploying AI at scale often matters as much, or more, than a slightly more powerful model. In certain military domains, models which are milliseconds faster than adversaries may be required. But for the overwhelming majority of use cases – from manufacturing, to healthcare, to shipping – models that are simply near the front of the pack can unlock the benefits of AI when they are meaningfully integrated into existing workstreams at scale.

This is particularly critical for middle powers, like the UK and Canada, who lack the scale and resources needed to keep pace with the US and China. Instead of trying to compete with superpowers to build Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), middle powers must focus on winning the deployment race. This means embedding AI across our economies and militaries through narrower and less flashy applications that solve specific, real-world problems – from automating labour-intensive agricultural practices, to improving productivity in ship building, or expanding access to high-quality personalised healthcare. However, for AI adoption to be trusted and accepted, it must be deployed with safety front-of-mind. Safety is not orthogonal to integrating AI, it is the tracks on which it progresses.

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