The Antalya Diplomacy Forum (ADF), held on April 11-13 under the theme “Reclaiming Diplomacy in a Fragmented World,” explored the growing complexity of global governance amid geopolitical shifts, technological disruption and institutional fatigue. A key topic at ADF 2025 – highlighted in the panel “Silent Super Power: Reflections of Science and AI Technology in International Relations” – was the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in global affairs. While discussed alongside issues like climate resilience, food security and humanitarian coordination, the inclusion of AI signaled a broader diplomatic shift: Recognition that AI is not just a technical matter, but a political and ethical frontier shaping the emerging technopolar world order.
In this evolving landscape, global power is increasingly defined by control over technological infrastructure, algorithmic systems and innovation ecosystems concentrated in a handful of geopolitical and corporate hubs. Rivalries among the U.S., China and the EU have further fragmented the digital domain, underscoring the need for forums like the ADF to foster strategic dialogue beyond binary frameworks of competition. Within this contested terrain, ADF 2025 highlighted how AI and emerging technologies are reshaping diplomacy, development models and global hierarchies. Discussions stressed the risks of digital asymmetry, where countries lacking access to data, computing power or innovation networks face deeper exclusion from the digital economy. In this context, inclusive governance rooted in equity, accountability and strategic cooperation becomes essential.
Sovereignty in technopolarity
Beyond questions of governance, the “democratization of technology” is becoming increasingly critical. At the same time, the very definition of state sovereignty is being reshaped considering evolving technological realities. The classical Westphalian model of sovereignty, which was rooted in the sanctity of territorial borders and the supremacy of state authority within them, has become increasingly insufficient in a world structured by digital flows and algorithmic governance.
In the technopolar context, sovereignty is being redefined by a state’s ability to exercise control across three key domains. First, data sovereignty: the capacity to store, process and govern national data securely, whether within physical borders or in sovereign cloud infrastructure. Second, algorithmic capacity: the ability to develop, deploy and audit the algorithms that shape decision-making in public administration, security and economic systems. Third, hardware autonomy: national competence in production or at least secure access to semiconductors and microchips, which underpin AI, telecommunications and military technologies.
This multidimensional view of sovereignty marks a shift from juridical control to infrastructural capability. It reflects a broader global transition in which states are not merely negotiating territorial power but competing over the architectures of the digital future. ADF 2025 recognized this transition and provided a venue for states, particularly those outside dominant tech blocs, to articulate alternative visions for technological sovereignty rooted in equity and resilience.
Democratization of AI diplomacy
ADF 2025 served as a platform for advancing the democratization of technological governance. Voices from Africa, Latin America and Asia called for AI frameworks that are equitable, multilingual and co-designed. This included appeals for capacity-building, investment in local innovation ecosystems and enhanced South-South cooperation in digital infrastructure development.
Crucially, discussions highlighted the role of national innovation policies in enabling more autonomous and resilient technological development. Several states emphasized the importance of integrating AI into national development strategies, linking regulatory policy, education and public-sector AI usage with the support of international partnerships. These collaborative models, including open-source innovation and equitable licensing frameworks, were positioned as pathways toward a more pluralistic digital future.
This emphasis aligns with global trends, such as those observed at the Paris AI Action Summit (2024), where 58 countries endorsed a declaration advocating for inclusive and sustainable AI development. While the Paris summit articulated normative aspirations, ADF 2025 moved toward operationalizing these goals by embedding them within real policy frameworks, national strategies and intergovernmental cooperation.
Although concrete projects remain in development, ADF 2025 advanced a foundational claim: that the governance of frontier technologies must be anchored in justice, sovereignty and development. In a world where algorithmic systems increasingly mediate diplomacy, trade and security, ensuring that the Global South is not relegated to the periphery is both a strategic and ethical imperative.
Ethics, accountability, locality
ADF 2025 also sharpened attention on the ethical challenges posed by emerging technologies. Forum discourse rejected both laissez-faire deployment and overly rigid universal codes, instead advocating for context-sensitive, adaptive governance frameworks. These would reflect regional values while ensuring fundamental principles of transparency, accountability and human dignity.
Ethical concerns ranged from biased facial recognition systems and exploitative surveillance infrastructures to the weaponization of algorithmic disinformation during elections. These were not abstract concerns, but urgent diplomatic challenges already influencing democratic institutions and international trust.
This framing reaffirmed that AI governance cannot be detached from the lived realities and innovation practices of the Global South. ADF 2025 thus acted as an epistemic forum, validating alternative knowledge systems, promoting locally grounded models, and challenging dominant narratives that equate technological progress with centralized control.
Toward a technopolar order
The conversations at ADF 2025 reflect a turning point in global governance: a movement away from singular normative authorities and toward distributed, plural forms of agency. Türkiye’s orchestration of the forum demonstrated how states can function as conveners and norm brokers in international debates on emerging technologies.
This shift signals the rise of a plural technopolar order, where digital sovereignty, data justice and inclusive innovation are no longer peripheral concerns but central pillars of international diplomacy. In this evolving reality, rivalries in the tech field are not just about supremacy in innovation, but about whose values, infrastructures and systems will underpin future global cooperation. As AI becomes embedded in the structures of global governance, diplomats, scholars and policymakers will need to engage with algorithmic systems not as neutral tools, but as political infrastructures with world-order implications.
Forum for a shared digital future
ADF 2025 reinforced a critical truth: Diplomacy must evolve alongside technology or risk obsolescence. Türkiye’s leadership, anchored in ethical deliberation, geopolitical balance and inclusive innovation, provided a compelling model of smart power in an increasingly fragmented and technologized world.
While concrete policy outcomes remain to be seen, the forum’s symbolic and procedural significance is clear. It fostered dialogue across geographic, generational and ideological divides, and it brought the aspirations of the Global South to the center of global digital governance debates. As authority and influence migrate from traditional hierarchies to algorithmic and infrastructural systems, the design of future norms will depend on inclusive participation. In this regard, the ADF (2025) may ultimately be remembered not simply as a diplomatic event but as a critical inflection point in the democratization of the technopolar world and in shaping a more just and multipolar digital future.