Hamish Low

Work

I am currently an AI Policy Fellow at the Institute for AI Policy and Strategy, working with the AI Security Institute on a project exploring how transformative AI could reshape national power, with a focus currently on the role of Russia in a world of very powerful AI.

Previously I was a Summer Fellow at the Centre for the Governance of AI, where I worked on questions around AI sovereignty in the UK. Redefining AI sovereignty for the UK as being principally about generating interdependence with the United States, and arguing for downstream, software-based capabilities as the strongest path to achieving this.

Prior to 2025 I worked as a telecoms & tech analyst at Enders Analysis, writing subscription research for large corporate and government clients. My research at Enders focused on satellite communications and AI, with my analysis being quoted in Bloomberg, The Telegraph and Reuters.

Research Interests

I am most interested in how more powerful AI systems will alter our geopolitical and economic systems, and what the right policy responses are from states to manage these pressures.

I write on these issues (along with my brother!) on substack at Cambrian.

My academic background was first in History & Politics, then International Political Economy, where I became especially interested in China studies and how states interact with processes of technological innovation and diffusion. My MA dissertation focused on China's industrial policy in its semiconductor ecosystem, which provided my first look into the world of AI compute. I have since explored along the AI value chain, writing reports at Enders on the business models of the big tech firms, and strategies of their AI partners such as OpenAI. I believe that research blending technical and policy worlds, or between economics and geopolitics, gives vital analytical leverage.

I also write on other intellectual interests at my personal blog, the most notable being forecasting where I take part each year in the Astral Codex Ten annual forecasting competition.