A very timely new book by Winston Ma, Who Owns AI?, Sovereign Wealth Funds, State Ownership, and the Race for Sovereign AI, hit the shelves in 2026.
Amazon:
In the summer of 2026, a Republican president, a democratic socialist senator, the CEO of OpenAI and the Chinese government all reached the same conclusion: artificial intelligence is too important to leave to private capital alone. They agree on almost nothing else.
Winston Ma spent a decade investing for China’s sovereign wealth fund in North American markets. In Who Owns AI? he follows the state money now going into power grids, chip foundries, data centers and the frontier labs themselves. He finds Saudi Arabia selling its flagship football club to pay for compute. China’s National AI Fund writes the smallest check in DeepSeek’s first outside round and comes away with the only voting seat. Washington turns $8.9 billion in CHIPS Act grants into an Intel stake worth more than $46 billion within a year. And in March 2026, Iranian drones strike three Amazon data centers in the Gulf. It was the first time data centers had been deliberately targeted in a war.
Three parties now claim a share of what AI produces: the companies that build it, the governments that fund it, and the public whose knowledge it was trained on. Ma shows why none of them can hold that claim alone. He also shows why nearly every serious proposal ends up at the same answer, a sovereign wealth fund for AI. Still unsettled: who owns it, who runs it, and who it answers to.
Norway turned its oil into a fund that has been growing for decades. The people in this book are deciding right now whether anyone will do the same with AI.
Winston Ma is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form.
Are you looking for more innovation experts at the China Speakers Bureau? Do check out this list.
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