The rise of tech diplomacy marks a fundamental shift in the way power operates in international relations. Unlike its predecessors – science diplomacy and digital diplomacy – technology diplomacy is not simply an evolution, but a redefinition of diplomatic practice in an era where technology itself shapes the architecture of the global order. Science diplomacy has harnessed the power of knowledge through scientific expertise, fostering international collaboration on research challenges ranging from climate change to particle physics. Digital diplomacy has harnessed the power of information via digital communication platforms, allowing ministries of foreign affairs to engage the public and conduct outreach activities through social media and online channels.
Technology diplomacy, however, operates on an entirely different scale: it wields the power of innovation through transformative technologies that restructure the very systems that govern international relations. This distinction is important because technology diplomacy is both polycentric and polylateral in ways that its predecessors were not. Power now organizes itself around multiple hubs of innovation – the United States, China and the European Union in the first place – rather than around a single hierarchical center. More fundamentally, authority is dispersed simultaneously among states, tech companies, civil society, and defense agencies. Over twenty countries have appointed technology ambassadors, and digital diplomats are now standard in ministries of foreign affairs. However, the crucial change lies in the way the order operates: increasingly through standards, protocols, and design choices embedded in technological infrastructures rather than through treaties negotiated only by sovereign states.
Challenges facing tech diplomacy
Technology diplomacy is confronted with four structural frictions that traditional diplomatic frameworks struggle to resolve. The friction of speed emerges from the clear misalignment between technological change and the timing of regulation. While AI models emerge every month and legislation has increased ninefold since 2016, international treaties take years to negotiate. By the time the diplomatic processes conclude, the technology they sought to govern may have already evolved beyond recognition. The friction of authority reflects a profound shift in legitimacy from sovereignty to performance. The world's top ten tech companies hold a combined market capitalization of $18 trillion — more than China's GDP. When private companies design the digital infrastructure that companies depend on, questions about who governs become deeply controversial. Traditional state authority meets technology companies that wield design power capable of shaping behavior through algorithmic architectures and platform rules.
The friction of asymmetry manifests itself in the strategic dependencies created by concentrated technological capabilities. With an estimated 92% of data produced in the Western world stored in the U.S. — and only about 4% in Europe — along with critical supply chains for semiconductors, cloud computing, and emerging standards concentrated in a few hands, states face growing structural vulnerabilities. This creates "winner-take-all" dynamics in which those who control bottlenecks in supply chains or standard-setting processes exert disproportionate influence. Finally, regulatory friction arises from competing value systems embedded in approaches to technological governance. The European Union pursues a regulatory leadership based on the protection of rights. China emphasizes cyber sovereignty and state control. The United States promotes market-driven innovation with safety barriers. These philosophical divergences yield over 600 ethical guidelines on artificial intelligence but with minimal application, as each model reflects fundamentally different views of the digital order.
The case of quantum technology
While much of the contemporary discussion focuses on artificial intelligence, another powerful technology emerges on the horizon with a potentially more structural impact: quantum technology. Unlike incremental AI improvements, quantum computing promises discrete capability leaps — moments of "quantum supremacy" when problems unsolvable by any classical computer suddenly become tractable. This creates a "cryptographic precipice": current encryption standards remain secure against classical attacks, but a future fault-tolerant quantum computer could crack them almost instantly, making decades of encrypted communications transparent overnight. Such discontinuous leaps in capability, combined with the inherently dual-use nature of quantum — spanning secure communications, sensing, and computing — make it an ideal lens for examining the challenges of technology diplomacy in their most acute form.
Quantum technology thus provides a revealing case study in which all four frictions mentioned above amplify to their extremes. The friction of speed becomes acute through the threat of the quantum's "pick up now, decipher later": adversaries pick up encrypted communications today anticipating that future quantum computers will decipher them retrospectively. This time paradox requires the immediate deployment of post-quantum cryptography before the threat fully materializes — reversing the normal political sequences in which regulations follow proven damages. Authority friction intensifies as defense and intelligence agencies dominate quantum development to unprecedented levels. In the United States, the NSA, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Energy co-chair quantum initiatives, with DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and IARPA (Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity) providing the majority of funding. This blurs civil-military boundaries in a seemingly scientific domain, challenging traditional diplomatic channels designed for state-to-state interaction.
Asymmetry reaches new heights through the concentrated supply chains of the quantum. Building quantum computers requires dilution refrigerators that operate near absolute zero — a market currently dominated by a few companies. Knowledge dependencies are equally marked: training quantum physicists requires decades of training, creating structural barriers that amplify the gaps between those who possess and those who do not possess quantum capabilities. Even more critically, regulatory friction manifests itself as zero-sum competition. If a government achieved quantum supremacy in cryptanalysis, it could quickly establish strategic dominance. This "winner-take-all" logic fuels an arms race dynamic in which the first-mover benefits appear so great that cooperation becomes strategically risky – every advance of one power appears as an existential threat to the others.
Technological diplomacy: symptom and instrument of (dis)order
Technological diplomacy embodies a paradox: it is simultaneously a symptom of global disorder and a potential tool for creating a new order. The inability of any single state to unilaterally control the trajectory of quantum – or the spread of artificial intelligence, or semiconductor supply chains – signals the inadequacy of traditional hierarchical governance. Polycentric centers of power and networks of polylateral actors fragment authority, creating what appears to be an anarchist competition. However, within this fragmentation lie opportunities for reorganization. The standardization of post-quantum cryptography – led by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) – illustrates how technical necessity can overcome geopolitical tension. The U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council working group shows democratic allies building shared vocabularies and aligning standards — translating values into technical implementations.
The central question becomes whether the digital order will evolve towards anarchy or cooperation. The answer critically depends on our collective ability to translate norms into the design of technology itself. The current trajectory suggests a competition managed with tendencies towards fragmentation – neither full balkanisation nor sustainable cooperation, but rather a restless coexistence of rival systems. The role of tech diplomacy in this landscape is necessarily modest but vital: expanding common ground where possible, preventing complete fragmentation, and building hybrid forums that bridge competing visions. Success requires accepting that competition continues, working pragmatically to preserve interoperability and shared standards in domains where mutual vulnerability creates aligned incentives. The future digital order will likely be neither the hierarchical system of the past nor a fully cooperative global framework, but something more complex – a managed polycentrism in which technological diplomacy serves as a negotiation mechanism between competing technological sovereignties.