Four Battlegrounds

Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. 
Paul Scharre. 
W.W. Norton & Co. 2023. 
ISBN: 9780393866865.
 
Four Battlegrounds is a book by defence analyst Paul Scharre that examines how AI is reshaping global power, especially in the rivalry between the United States, China, and Europe. He argues that competition over AI will hinge on four core battlegrounds: data, computing power (advanced chips and infrastructure), talent (ability to attract and retain top researchers and companies), and institutions (states’ and militaries’ capacity to integrate AI effectively into economies, societies, and armed forces).
 
Scharre frames data as a strategic resource analogous to coal or oil that must be collected and refined for AI systems, while control over semiconductor supply chains becomes a source of leverage in computing power. He shows how governments and corporations compete to recruit AI researchers and build leading firms, treating human capital as a decisive asset. The most decisive battleground, he contends, is institutional: the nations that design resilient, adaptive, and ethical structures for deploying AI, particularly in military and security domains, will shape the future balance of power and the prospects for human freedom in an AI-saturated world.
 
Paul Scharre is an American defence and technology analyst who serves as executive vice president at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington, DC–based national security think tank. From 2008 to 2013 he worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he led the Pentagon working group that drafted DoD Directive 3000.09, the U.S. military’s first policy on autonomy in weapon systems, and helped shape broader policy on unmanned systems, ISR, and emerging weapons technologies. He was named one of TIME’s “100 most influential people in AI” in 2023. Scharre holds a PhD in war studies from King’s College London, an MA in political economy and public policy, and a BS in physics from Washington University in St. Louis.