Geopolitics and Model Origin

All courses / AI Governance / Module 2 / Chapter 6

Learning objectives

After the lesson the participant can:

• Explain why infrastructure sovereignty does not settle the three questions specific to models.
• Assess a model or provider across the five risk categories, scoring each from 1 to 4 with a cited rationale.
• Compare how a hosted service, self-hosted open weights and a European provider move risk between the categories.
• Draft an origin policy rule and an exit plan with a second source, switch times and trigger events.

Key concepts

Five categories of geopolitical risk

Legal access to data and prompts, service continuity including sanctions and export controls, model behaviour, supply-chain integrity and regulatory compliance. Each applies to every origin by the same criteria, and each attaches to a different layer of dependency.

Control, not location

The test in the US CLOUD Act, which requires disclosure of records within a provider's possession, custody or control wherever they are located. The chapter notes the symmetry: both US and Chinese home law can reach data in a provider's control.

Model-origin assessment

A dated, evidence-backed record such as Hansa Mutual's GEO-2026-017 that scores one model or provider on the five categories, takes the highest score as the overall rating, lists controls and carries a review date.

Model-origin policy

A versioned policy stating which combinations of origin and deployment mode may serve which data classes. Origins are defined by legal position, so a change in adequacy changes the outcome automatically, and the gateway rejects any route not permitted.

Second source

A replacement model from a different jurisdiction, or self-hosted open weights, evaluated at least monthly, kept warm with shadow traffic and drilled twice a year, so that a sanction or ruling is an operational event and not a crisis.

Interactive exercises

Do them here and get feedback at once. Choose a card and then where it belongs, or drag it.

Teaching plan

Discussion

1. The chapter treats the CAISI evaluations as credible and as produced by an interested party. How should an assessment record use evidence of that kind?
2. Nordvik Region's reporting clause on government data requests is deliberately modest, because a supplier cannot promise what its home law forbids. What can a contract realistically achieve against legal access risk, and what must architecture do instead?
3. Blanket bans push staff towards unmanaged consumer tools and blanket trust ignores dated evidence. Where does your organisation's present position sit between the two, and what would a risk-tiered position change?

Written exercise

Self-test

Choose an answer to see whether it is right, or open the answer below each question.

1. In the chapter's practical guide, how is the overall rating of a model-origin assessment derived from the five category scores?

   1. It is the average of the five category scores, rounded up
   2. It is the score for legal access, which outweighs the others
   3. It is the highest of the category scores
   4. It is set by legal counsel independently of the scores
   Show the answer

   C. It is the highest of the category scores
   Step 6 of the guide takes the highest category score as the overall rating, not the average. In GEO-2026-017 the overall rating is 3, the maximum of the category scores.

2. Why did Hansa Mutual's self-hosted coding model from a developer established in China score only 1 on legal access?

   1. Because no prompts or telemetry leave Hansa's infrastructure and egress is denied
   2. Because the model's licence is Apache 2.0 and therefore open
   3. Because China has an adequacy decision for source code
   4. Because the developer appointed an authorised representative in the Union
   Show the answer

   A. Because no prompts or telemetry leave Hansa's infrastructure and egress is denied
   The developer's jurisdiction mattered less than how the model is run. Nothing leaves Hansa's infrastructure, so legal access scores low; a hosted service from the same developer would have scored 4.

3. What does the chapter conclude from findings that model behaviour differs between languages?

   1. Models from third countries should be limited to English-language use
   2. Evaluation must cover every language a deployment serves, not English alone
   3. Behaviour tests can be replaced by provenance checks on the weights
   4. Translation into English before inference removes the behaviour risk
   Show the answer

   B. Evaluation must cover every language a deployment serves, not English alone
   The reported narrative alignment varied strongly by language, so testing in English alone does not test a deployment in twenty languages. The practical guide requires behaviour prompts in every deployment language.