Sino-Iranian Cooperation in Artificial Intelligence: A Potential Countering Against the US Hegemony

Abstract

China’s rising global status in different realms predominantly through major projects such as Belt and Road Initiative, continuum on status quo in the Middle East, led China to seek potential cooperation opportunities on emerging technologies, based on anti-US alternatives which clearly directed to regional powers such as Iran. Drawing on the strategic documents signed by Iran and China during the last decade and focusing on the military and technological agreements between the two countries, this chapter seeks to find possible avenues to examine the nexus between the increasing importance of emerging technologies and Chinese-Iran cooperation on AI. We argue that Iran and China, as two anti-US countries, are trying to form a potential capability to oppose the US hegemony by cooperating in artificial intelligence.