AI export and digital silk road: a comparative analysis of China’s influences on digital economies and geopolitics across Southeast Asia

Introduction There is a lack of original research investigating the relationships between China’s artificial intelligence (AI) exports and their possible impacts on strengthening Digital Silk Road (DSR) co-operation. This paper addresses this gap by studying the distribution of China’s AI export projects to Southeast Asian countries and examining whether larger Southeast Asian AI importers were more active DSR partners. Methods The analysis employs a robust panel data methodology incorporating lagged explanatory variables and clustered standard errors to mitigate issues of heteroscedasticity and auto-correlation. Data for China’s AI export projects were drawn from the China’s AI Exports Database (CAIED) for the period 2006–2017, while DSR partner activity (2018–2020) and economic variables were sourced from the IISS China Connects and the World Bank Open Data, respectively. Results Findings suggest that Southeast Asian countries importing AI technologies from China between 2006 and 2017 had not been statistically more DSR active between 2018 and 2020. Instead, the analysis reveals a positive and highly significant impact of country-level economic freedom as a contributing factor to being an active DSR partner. Discussion This study enhances transparency in the dynamics of China’s digital geopolitics by highlighting economic competitiveness as the primary driver of DSR partnerships, rather than prior AI import history. This suggests DSR engagement is driven more by intrinsic economic factors than by direct technological pre-conditioning through Chinese AI exports.