US Rejects Global AI Governance; UN Agencies Plan Tech Backup

White House OSTP Director Michael Kratsios stated at the India AI Impact Summit in February 2026 that the US 'totally' rejects global AI governance, arguing that safety-focused international frameworks harm competition and exclude developing nations. The Trump administration promotes 'AI sovereignty,' defined as nations controlling their own AI infrastructure, data, models, and policies, as the preferred alternative to multilateral governance, and has an American AI Exports Program to advance bilateral AI diplomacy. Separately, UN agencies are exploring shared computing and data infrastructure to reduce reliance on US technology providers, prompted by US sanctions on the International Criminal Court and Anthropic's Mythos model cutoff. The ITU's chief information officer described the exercise as contingency planning, not a full exit from US technology, with the goal of building backups and sorting systems by data sensitivity.