Officials talking about artificial intelligence (AI) often speak in terms of the next industrial revolution or existential risks. Such rhetoric ultimately does little to capture how AI filters into the ordinary workings of a city like Hong Kong.

The geopolitics of AI are no longer abstract. They are beginning to shape who can use which tools – and on what terms.

Over the past few months, two major international banks in the city have reportedly felt the impact. Anthropic’s Claude, a generative AI tool used by staff at JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, was apparently removed from internal systems used by Hong Kong-based teams.