Global & Geopolitical Competition
What is the Global & Geopolitical Competition force?
In the Five Forces of Enterprise AI model, Global & Geopolitical Competition is the external force defined by the strategic rivalry between nations and regions to achieve AI dominance. Unlike Porter’s Five Forces, which focuses primarily on industry economics, or PESTLE, which often treats politics as a distant background factor, the Five Forces framework elevates geopolitics to an immediate operational risk. It encompasses trade restrictions, divergent regulatory regimes (e.g., EU vs. US vs. China), and the race for technological sovereignty, dictating the "rules of the road" for your enterprise regarding model provenance, data sovereignty, and market access.
Why the Five Forces model explicitly calls out this risk
We designed the Five Forces of Enterprise AI to account for a new reality: AI is now a sovereign capability. Geopolitics has moved from background noise to an immediate operational risk.
As identified in the Five Forces analysis, we have entered an era of "Tech Nationalism." This force now dictates your development, operations, and technology stack through multiple vectors: from semiconductor export bans and the rise of non-Western foundation models (like DeepSeek), to shifting trade, education, and immigration policies. The Five Forces model warns that your choice of AI model is no longer just a technical decision; it is a geopolitical one. Leaders who ignore this force risk building their strategy on a foundation that can be sanctioned, starved of talent, or banned overnight.
Key Pressures mapped by the Five Forces
The Five Forces of Enterprise AI breaks this dynamic down into four critical pressures that strategists must map:
Standards & Economic Leadership: Nations are competing to dominate the AI economy through trade policy and supply chain control. The Five Forces approach requires navigating export bans (like chips) and aligning with the technical standards of your target markets to ensure resilience against economic decoupling.
Fostering Innovation & Trust: Governments view AI organizations as strategic assets. The model highlights the pressure to demonstrate that your AI systems align with national interests to secure government contracts and social license.
Culture & Regional Differences: The Five Forces recognizes that AI talent is not borderless. Education policies, immigration visas, and workforce capabilities vary by region. A strategy that relies on a global talent pool may fail if geopolitical friction severs the pipeline between your R&D hubs and the necessary talent.
Ethics, Security, & IP: The protection of model weights is now a national security issue. The framework advises enterprises to secure their AI supply chains against espionage and ensure compliance with fragmented global privacy laws.
How to respond using the Human-Centered AI Enterprise model
How do you navigate the fractured landscape identified by the Five Forces? By adopting the Human-Centered AI Enterprise model.
In a world of geopolitical mistrust, organizations that prioritize Ethical & Human-Aligned Design (a core spoke of the Human-Centered AI model) become "trust anchors." By ensuring your systems are transparent and fair, you increase your organization’s “future resilience” against regulatory trends and risks identified in the Five Forces analysis. Furthermore, by leveraging Human Potential, you utilize the one asset that cannot be easily sanctioned: your people's unique cultural strengths.