Rihla Research & Advisory

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Research and commentary on AI access, domestic capability, infrastructure and governance.

Middle powers and AI strategy

  1. Anderljung, Markus, and Stephen Clare. “What Can Middle Powers Do for Frontier AI Governance?.” Markus Anderljung’s blog, July 2026. https://www.markusanderljung.com/blog/what-can-middle-powers-do-for-frontier-ai-governance.
  2. Davidson, Tom. “How Can the Middle Powers Avoid Getting Trounced During the Intelligence Explosion? A Plan.” Forethought, May 27, 2026. https://newsletter.forethought.org/p/how-can-the-middle-powers-avoid-getting.
  3. Juijn, Daan, Stan van Baarsen, Judith Dada, Maximilian Negele, Lily Stelling, Philip Fox, Alex Petropoulos, and Michiel Bakker. Europe 2031: What Getting AI Wrong Means for Us. Europe 2031, June 11, 2026. https://europe2031.ai/.
  4. Leicht, Anton, and Dean Ball. The Race Worth Winning: Middle Powers in the Age of Machine Intelligence. Foundation for American Innovation, February 13, 2026. https://www.thefai.org/posts/the-race-worth-winning-middle-powers-in-the-age-of-machine-intelligence.
  5. Leicht, Anton, and Sam Winter-Levy. AI Breakout Capacity: A Middle-Power Path Between Racing and Dependence. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 28, 2026. https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2026/09/artificial-intelligence-ai-development-breakout-germany-india-japan-uk-middle-power.
  6. Martinet, Charles and Yohann Ralle. “Can Mid-Sized Economies Come Together to Build Frontier AI?.” The AI Wonk, OECD.AI Policy Observatory. December 16, 2025. https://oecd.ai/en/wonk/can-mid-sized-economies-come-together-to-build-frontier-ai.
  7. Reed, Tom, host, with Anton Leicht. “Anton Leicht on How Middle Powers Avoid Losing Everything in a Post-AI World.” 80,000 Hours Podcast, episode 247, July 14, 2026. https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/anton-leicht-middle-powers-agi-left-behind/.Podcast and transcript
  8. Tanner, Brooke, Cameron F. Kerry, Andrew W. Wyckoff, Nicoleta Kyosovska, Andrea Renda, and Elham Tabassi. Is AI Sovereignty Possible? Balancing Autonomy and Interdependence. Brookings Institution. February 17, 2026. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/is-ai-sovereignty-possible-balancing-autonomy-and-interdependence/.
  9. Varela Sandoval, Francisco Javier, Isabella Wilkinson, Alex Krasodomski, and Rowan Wilkinson. How Middle Powers Can Weather US and Chinese AI Dominance — The Case for ‘Sovereign AI’ Strategies. Chatham House. February 16, 2026. Updated March 13, 2026. https://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/02/how-middle-powers-can-weather-us-and-chinese-ai-dominance.
  10. Winter-Levy, Sam, and Anton Leicht. “The AI Divide: How U.S.-Chinese Competition Could Leave Most Countries Behind.” Foreign Affairs, February 10, 2026. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/ai-divide.Paywalled

Compute and data centers

  1. Davies, Matt and Jai Vipra. Computing Commons — Designing Public Compute for People and Society. Ada Lovelace Institute. February 7, 2025. https://www.adalovelaceinstitute.org/report/computing-commons/.
  2. Fox, Philip, Monika Schnitzer, and Daniel Privitera. AI Compute in Germany: Current Capacity, Future Demand. KIRA Center, October 2025. https://www.philip-fox.com/s/KIRA-Compute-Report-2025-English.pdf.PDF
  3. Fox, Philip. “7 Learnings about Compute Strategy for Middle Powers.” Philip Fox’s newsletter, December 17, 2025. https://foxphilip.substack.com/p/7-learnings-about-compute-strategy.
  4. Grimm, Simon. “Building Liberal Compute.” Simon Grimm’s newsletter, March 3, 2026. https://writing.simongrimm.com/p/building-liberal-compute.
  5. Lehdonvirta, Vili, Boxi Wu, Zoe Jay Hawkins, Celine Caira, and Lucia Russo. Measuring Domestic Public Cloud Compute Availability for Artificial Intelligence. OECD Artificial Intelligence Papers, no. 49. Paris: OECD Publishing. October 29, 2025. https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/measuring-domestic-public-cloud-compute-availability-for-artificial-intelligence_8602a322-en.html.
  6. Phillips-Robins, Alasdair, Teddy Tawil, and Sam Winter-Levy. The Compute Coalition: How to Build the Future of AI in the Free World. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 8, 2026. https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2026/06/the-compute-coalition-how-to-build-the-future-of-ai-in-the-free-world.
  7. Richardson, Aris, Haley Yi, Michelle Nie, Simon Wisdom, Casey Price, Ruben Weijers, Steven Veld, and Mauricio Baker. “How Sovereign Is Sovereign Compute? A Review of 775 Non-U.S. Data Centers.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.00932, July 30, 2025. Revised May 3, 2026. https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.00932.Preprint
  8. Schmidt, Jonathan, Arslan Jurion, and Toni Lorente. “What Compute on European Soil Might Buy Europe and What It Depends On.” The Future Society, August 19, 2026. https://thefuturesociety.org/european-ai-compute/.

Europe

  1. Andersson Lipcsey, Rafael, and Maximilian Negele. Pooling Europe’s Compute: The Promise of Distributed Training for European Frontier AI. RAND Europe, July 16, 2026. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA5013-1.html.
  2. Arq Foundation. Preparing Europe for Transformative AI. Arq Foundation, June 2026. https://www.arq.foundation/research/preparing-europe-for-transformative-ai.
  3. Garicano, Pieter, and Simon Grimm. “Nineteen Thoughts on AI and Europe.” Silicon Continent, June 14, 2026. https://www.siliconcontinent.com/p/nineteen-thoughts-on-ai-and-europe.
  4. Kodama, Miles. “The World’s First Frontier AI Regulation Is Surprisingly Thoughtful.” Miles Kodama’s website, September 2025. https://mkodama.org/content/EU-code/.
  5. Lidiard, John, Oleksandra Vereschak, Tom Gibbs, and Markus Anderljung. Delays to Frontier AI in the EU and UK. Centre for the Governance of AI, June 28, 2026. https://www.governance.ai/research-paper/delays-to-frontier-ai-in-the-eu-and-uk.
  6. Moës, Nick, Toni Lorente, Amin Oueslati, Jonathan Schmidt, Robin Staes-Polet, and Radina Kraeva. Beware of Geeks Bearing Gifts: Building True EU Frontier AI Sovereignty. The Future Society, April 2026. https://thefuturesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Beware_of_Geeks_17April26.pdf.PDF

Background on transformative AI

Research reviews and scenarios about advanced AI capabilities, risks and the concentration of power. Scenario publications describe possible futures.

  1. Bengio, Yoshua, et al.. International AI Safety Report 2026. International AI Safety Report, February 3, 2026. https://internationalaisafetyreport.org/.Research review
  2. Hadshar, Rose. “Extreme Power Concentration.” 80,000 Hours, April 2025. Updated October 2025. https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/extreme-power-concentration/.
  3. Kokotajlo, Daniel, Scott Alexander, Thomas Larsen, Eli Lifland, and Romeo Dean. AI 2027. AI Futures Project, April 3, 2025. https://ai-2027.com/.Scenario
  4. MacAskill, William, and Fin Moorhouse. Preparing for the Intelligence Explosion. Forethought, March 11, 2025. https://www.forethought.org/research/preparing-for-the-intelligence-explosion.
  5. Widder, David Gray, Meredith Whittaker, and Sarah Myers West. “Why ‘Open’ AI Systems Are Actually Closed, and Why This Matters.” Nature 635 (2024): 827–33. Published online November 27, 2024. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08141-1.

AI trends and adoption

  1. Microsoft AI Economy Institute. Global AI Diffusion Report: Q2 2026 Trends and Insights. Microsoft, September 2026. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/topics/ai-economy-institute/reports/global-ai-diffusion-report/.
  2. Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. The 2026 AI Index Report. Stanford University, 2026. https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report.