Sovereign AI: Why governments are staking bets in frontier labs

The Financial Times argues that the US and China are moving from regulating AI to directly owning stakes in frontier AI labs, treating AI as strategic national infrastructure. Trump has floated government equity in OpenAI and xAI, while China backs DeepSeek through state funds, signaling a shift from policy to ownership across the AI stack—from chips to models and, soon, governance. This raises complex questions about balancing national security with shareholder value as governments gain influence over the direction of AI development.