This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of key challenges posed by dual-use AI technologies and of the attempt to regulate them at the national and global levels. Our chapter is divided into four sections. The first section deals with the shifting global landscape marked by increased geopolitical fragmentation and emerging techno-nationalism. This comes against the backdrop of key obstacles to effective AI regulatory cooperation, such as the concept of the securitySecurity dilemma, as well as the indistinguishability and integration of AI technologies into a comprehensive range of daily activities. The second section emphasizes the race to create global “rules of the game” in the domain of AI regulationAI regulation, with a comparative overview of approaches adopted by the EU, the US, and China. The most significant part of the section deals with the specifics of the EU AI ActEU AI act, as the first comprehensive regulatory framework voted in recently. It provides an explanation of the risk-based approach and AI systemsAI systems risk categories, as favored by the EU. This section broadly outlines three possible scenarios for setting up global regulatory standards in the domain of AI. The third section sketches the most probable scenarios, which are framed in the democracies versus autocracies narrative. Either a concerted block of democracies made up of the US and EU, or the EU alone, will have to tackle the diametrically opposite regulatory and political philosophy embodied by China’s digital authoritarianism. The fourth and final section concludes by giving a distinctive European perspective on how the continent could catch up in the AI race and obtain a powerful voice in global discussions on dual-use AIDual-use AI technologies.