HAI Seminar: AI and Strategic Stability: A Framework for U.S.–China Competition

Why It Matters

Understanding these interactions is critical because AI and chip supply vulnerabilities could rapidly shift deterrence calculus and crisis dynamics between the U.S. and China—raising the risk of miscalculation over Taiwan and complicating arms-control and stability efforts.

Summary

Stanford Hoover Fellow Ike Fryman argued that AI, nuclear deterrence, and semiconductor interdependence are converging to reshape U.S.–China strategic stability, with Taiwan the geopolitical linchpin. He framed strategic stability as a relative, system-level condition shaped not just by weapons counts but by sensing, command-and-control, and thresholds that AI can lower or obscure. Fryman warned AI introduces both deterrence-enhancing tools (faster decision support, improved sensors) and new instability risks via cyber operations, degraded intelligence, and accelerated crisis dynamics. He urged interdisciplinary research and policy attention to how AI-driven changes in military C2, cyber offense/defense, and semiconductor supply chains alter escalation pathways.

Original Description

Strategic stability exists when neither side thinks it can improve its strategic outcome by striking first. In this HAI seminar, Hoover Fellow Eyck Freymann, provided a detailed account of how AI, nuclear deterrence, and semiconductor interdependence jointly shape strategic stability in U.S.–China competition. The presentation makes the case that AI introduces both new deterrence tools and new threats to strategic stability, especially through its effects on cyber operations, intelligence, and command-and-control.

This video was recorded at Stanford University on May 27, 2026.

00:00:00 Introduction

00:01:18 Presentation

00:35:40 Q&A