Pax Silica, the State Department’s new flagship initiative on AI and supply-chain security, seeks to unite the world’s most technologically advanced economies behind a shared goal: building a secure, innovation-driven silicon and semiconductor ecosystem capable of supporting the next generation of artificial intelligence.
Announced at the inaugural summit on December 12, the initiative formalizes a growing consensus among partner nations that the global economy is being reorganized by AI—and that secure access to critical minerals, semiconductor manufacturing, compute capacity, energy, and trusted digital infrastructure is now a matter of economic and national security.
The United States convened partners from Japan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia, with guest contributions from Taiwan, the European Union, Canada, and the OECD. Collectively, these countries anchor the semiconductor and AI supply chain, home to companies such as Sony, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Samsung, SK Hynix, Temasek, DeepMind, MGX, Rio Tinto, and ASML.
At the summit, delegates emphasized a shared objective: reducing single points of failure and overreliance on any one market for materials, components, or compute. That includes strengthening long-term offtake agreements, coordinating responses to dumping or oversupply conditions, and mobilizing co-investment to expand productive capacity across the semiconductor, energy, and mineral-processing sectors.
The initiative also underscores a geopolitical shift. The United States has asserted that economic security is now inseparable from national security, particularly as AI accelerates global competition. Partner countries echoed the view that trustworthy systems—such as secure fiber networks, hardened data centers, and protected semiconductor lines—are essential for safeguarding innovation, investment, and future growth.
Pax Silica commits participants to collaborate on strategic segments of the global technology stack: semiconductor design and packaging, compute infrastructure, logistics, advanced manufacturing, minerals refining, and the energy systems that feed AI-scale power demand. The framework calls for aligning investment security practices, protecting sensitive technologies from undue access, and accelerating partnerships that strengthen high-trust digital and industrial ecosystems.
Next steps are already underway. Under Secretary Jacob Helberg directed U.S. diplomats across Washington and overseas missions to identify candidate infrastructure projects tied to the initiative and coordinate economic security practices with partner nations. The expectation is for Pax Silica to become an operational platform—one that drives joint ventures, strategic co-investment, and industry-aligned projects that reinforce supply-chain resilience.
