Trusted Trade and the AI Stack

This talk examines how ‘trusted trade’ logic has begun to shape AI supply chains. Trusted trade refers to the preferential organisation of economic exchange between states that are strategically aligned in some way. This logic has historically dictated trade in military technologies—for example, the United States does not knowingly sell advanced weapons systems to Russia or China. I argue that advanced AI extends this logic into the non-military domain. The talk briefly outlines a typology of the AI stack to explain why different layers attract different levels of trust-based restriction, before testing this account against trade intervention data. In doing so, it argues for a more granular account of the AI stack and its emerging place in international economic policy.