Rebooting Democracy in the Age of AI

Kazakhstan built one of the world’s most advanced digital governments in less than two decades. Now the country is racing into the next phase: AI-enabled governance, sovereign AI infrastructure, and nationwide AI deployment. But this transition is exposing a harder question beneath the ambition: what happens when countries move toward frontier AI systems before large parts of the population have reliable electricity, affordable internet, laptops, or the skills needed to use AI meaningfully?

AI data centers are arriving in communities long before most public institutions have figured out how to govern them. Drawing on recent analysis, fieldwork, and an InnovateUS workshop, Deborah Stine examines the questions public officials are now confronting around electricity, water, jobs, infrastructure, public trust, and community impact. She argues that AI data centers are far more than technology projects; they are major public policy decisions that will shape how communities experience the AI economy.

Ahead of a timely conversation around the civic role of the university in an age of democratic uncertainty and rapid technological change, Beth Simone Noveck spoke to the Scotsman about how Scotland's universities are uniquely place to reinvent the purpose of higher education.