Explain why frontier AI models are considered critical dual-use technologies. How does external restriction on these models impact a country’s defensive cyber capabilities?

Frontier AI models are critical dual-use technologies because they are general-purpose systems with advanced abilities in reasoning, coding, data analysis and multimodal understanding. The same capacity that helps solve complex problems can also be turned to harmful use at scale.

• Why dual-use: They can strengthen cyber defence through faster threat detection, log analysis, vulnerability scanning, phishing detection and secure code review.
• Misuse potential: They can also help generate malware, automate phishing, find software flaws and support parts of the cyber attack chain.
• Broader risk: Their accessibility lowers the skill needed for sophisticated attacks, making abuse cheaper and faster.

External restriction on such models weakens a country’s defensive cyber capacity by limiting access to the latest tools and slowing indigenous innovation. This creates an asymmetric gap when attackers are already using AI, leaving defenders slower in detecting, predicting and responding to threats.

Hence, frontier AI is both a shield and a weapon; restricting it externally can directly erode cyber resilience, especially in critical infrastructure protection.