The United States has been building a new global club to handle artificial intelligence, and this week it pulled in Europe. Germany, Greece, and the Netherlands signed onto Pax Silica, a Washington-led initiative designed to pry AI supply chains away from China. The announcement came Tuesday.
It is the first time European Union member states have joined the grouping. The stakes are straightforward.
China controls much of the world’s rare earths and other critical components that go into AI hardware. That dominance gives Beijing leverage. Pax Silica is meant to offer an alternative route.
Jacob Helberg, the initiative’s architect, told the Financial Times that Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Kazakhstan, and Panama would also join this week. The membership is growing fast.
Helberg called the expansion into Europe “not a treaty among the few, but a confederation of the capable.” He described the members as “the makers, the shippers, the builders of the foundations on which this century will stand.” Those are big words for a group that started last year and is still taking shape. But the US administration sees it as a necessary tool. The G7 and the G20, Helberg argued, are not suited to manage AI supply chains.
They are too broad, too slow, too caught up in other fights. So Pax Silica is the new forum. It is purpose-built, Helberg said, “to manage the AI economy at a time when AI is revolutionising the shape of the global economy.” The goal is to shape an American-led alternative to other frameworks — specifically the UN Global Digital Compact, which Helberg criticized.
He did not detail his objections in the Financial Times report, but the message was clear: Washington wants its own rules for AI, not ones written in New York or Geneva. What is at risk here is not just market share.
It is political influence. China has used its grip on rare earths and other supply-chain chokepoints to lean on other nations. A country that cannot source AI components without Beijing’s approval is a country that cannot make independent decisions.
Pax Silica aims to break that dependency. The new members from Europe bring manufacturing heft, shipping routes, and technical expertise.
Germany alone is a major industrial power. Greece and the Netherlands control key ports and logistics. The expansion into Europe also changes the group’s character.
It started as a US-led project with a handful of allies. Now it is a transatlantic one. That gives it more weight in any future negotiations over global AI standards.
It also puts pressure on other European nations to decide which side they are on. The EU as an institution has not joined, but three of its member states have.
That creates a split inside the bloc. Helberg did not say when the new members would formally sign on. He said a “significant number” of other countries would join this week.
The group is still small compared to the G20 or the UN membership, but it is growing. The question is whether it can actually build the supply chains it promises.
Rare earth processing, chip fabrication, and advanced logistics do not get built overnight. They take years and billions of dollars. For now, Pax Silica is a political statement.
It says the US and its allies are willing to create new institutions to compete with China on AI. It says they think the old ones are not good enough. And it says they are recruiting.
Europe is now inside the tent. Other regions are coming.
The AI economy is being carved up, and this is one of the maps being drawn.
