The AI race is in full swing and it is currently led by the US technology giants, which are competing between themselves but also with rivals from China and the EU. However, this AI race is also a priority for governments.
The US, the EU and China are developing their own strategies that reflect their unique strengths, ambitions, and values. Different governmental initiatives are now fueling this global race that is shaping the future of technology, the economy, and geopolitics, writes eToro analyst for Romania, Bogdan Maioreanu.
According to the Oxford Insights Government Al Readiness Index for 2024, published last December, North America remains the highest-performing region in the Government AI Readiness Index. The United States (with a total score of 87.03) and Canada (78.18) rank 1st and 6th globally, reflecting their strong overall AI readiness.
Western Europe ranks second with France leading the regional ranking this year with a score of 79.36, narrowly ahead of the United Kingdom (78.88). The region dominates the global top 10. East Asia ranks as the third-best performing region, with two of the global top three countries—Singapore, leading with 84.25, and the Republic of Korea, following closely with 79.98. China is 23rd in the Global ranking with an index of 72.01.
Eastern Europe ranks 4th in this index, with an average score of 57.88—over 10 points above the global average (47.59). Estonia (72.62) globally ranked 21st leads the region and is the only Eastern European country to feature in the global top 25. Romania has been slow to move into AI, with a 58 score, corresponding to 58th position in the global ranking for Government AI readiness.
Governmental strategies are meant to support AI development in general and companies in the field in particular. The United States stands out for its aggressive, innovation-first approach. The America’s AI Action Plan, unveiled by the White House on July 23rd, 2025, is founded on three pillars: accelerating innovation, building domestic AI infrastructure, and leading in international diplomacy and security. Investments in AI target the US dominance, but also the capacity to export American technology to allies, and to embed AI deeply across industry and government.
The U.S. approach is decisively pro-market, designed to maximize private sector involvement, quickly scale up workforce reskilling, and ensure American firms—among them Nvidia, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon—remain global AI leaders. The US administration is prioritizing economic power, technological leadership and de-regulation over tighter risk-based governance.
The European Union is actively pursuing leadership in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) through its AI Action Plan but has charted a contrasting path, focusing on becoming a “global hub for trustworthy and innovative AI”. The EU strategy anchors development in ethical, human-centric principles, transparency, and the protection of fundamental rights. The EU applies a risk-based regulatory framework: banning some uses outright (like social scoring), tightly controlling high-risk applications in critical areas (healthcare, security, employment), and mandating transparency for AI interactions. Large public-private investments—like the €20 billionGovernments race for AI supremacy InvestAI initiative—fund supercomputing infrastructures called AI Factories and five “AI Gigafactories,” each designed to give EU researchers, startups, and companies the computational resources to compete with the U.S. and China.
Currently, there are 13 AI factories in Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Finland, Luxembourg, Poland, Spain, Italy, Spain and Slovenia. The EU will also build 5 Giga AI Factories. In this initiative, Romania is considered to be an AI Factory partner country. Romania adopted its National Artificial Intelligence Strategy for 2024–2027, a plan that harmonizes with the EU AI Act, ensuring its regulatory environment is synchronized with European standards on ethics, transparency, and risk mitigation. One of the Romanian-born companies, UiPath, has become a key global player in AI.
China’s AI strategy is rooted in a blend of state-directed industrial policy, strategic self-sufficiency, and ambition for global leadership. China prioritizes the expansion of domestic supercomputing power, indigenous semiconductor development, and a unified national data market. Its latest 2025 global action plan, highlighted these days at the Shanghai AI Conference, targets the integration of AI into every sector—manufacturing, digital government, infrastructure, and the data economy—with explicit targets for AI’s share of GDP and world-leading digital industry growth. In his speech at the conference, Chinese Premier Li emphasized China’s ”AI plus” plan for integrating the tech across industries and said the country was willing to help other nations with the technology, especially in the Global South. The category loosely refers to less developed economies, especially countries outside the US and European orbits.
Investors noticed this governmental race for AI that also supports involved companies. Worldwide IT spending is expected to reach a total $5.43 trillion in 2025, an increase of 7.9% from 2024, according to the latest forecast by consulting company Gartner. This is good news for the industry. According to the latest eToro Retail investor Beat survey, 55% of retail investors at the global level and 63% of Romanian ones are expecting the share price of AI companies to increase this year.
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