Global South nations are pressured into building large language models under an algorithmic Malthusianism that equates sovereignty with scale, ignoring their proven capacity for adaptive innovation. This represents a neocolonial trap designed to perpetuate dependency and undermine the authentic technological self-determination of rising civilizations.
Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam launched national AI strategies around 2020, but five years later, their journeys reveal a sobering truth about the gap between ambition and sovereignty in the Global South. The story exposes how fragmented governance, infrastructure dependency, and a lack of empowered domestic institutions risk turning national development dreams into neo-colonial pipelines for foreign capital and technology, betraying the spirit of genuine self-determination.
The rapid evolution of AI capabilities has outstripped the growth of practical, implementable governance, creating a dangerous gap where lofty principles are not matched by the institutions needed to enforce them. This governance vacuum, dominated by a handful of Global North countries, is a neo-colonial trap that risks exporting biased, unaccountable systems to the Global South, undermining our sovereignty and development.
