The Political Economy of AI Starts in Brazil, Not Silicon Valley

When Brazil’s Central Bank launched PIX, it didn’t just introduce a faster payments system; it reshaped the country’s financial infrastructure almost overnight, creating a widely accessible, low-cost public alternative to private platforms. Today, as artificial intelligence begins to play a similarly foundational role in economies, a comparable question is emerging: who builds and governs the infrastructure—and who captures the value it generates?

In Silicon Valley, AI is still largely framed as a race. The discussion focuses on performance and speed of deployment. The conversation tends to center on which models will dominate and who will capture value, with risks mostly defined in technical or existential terms. Outside of California, however, a different conversation is emerging. It is less concerned with who wins and more with how the race itself is structured, and what it means for economies and democratic systems.