Milei's No-Cepo Pledge: Argentina's Open-Door Bid for AI
Argentine President Javier Milei says Argentina will not put a restriction ('un cepo') on Artificial Intelligence. Casa Rosada reported the remarks on Sept. 24, 2026, from a speech in New York focused on the defense of Western values. Casa Rosada
The pledge caps a two-year effort to present Argentina as a permissive place for technology capital. Milei, a self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalist who favors very limited government and free markets, won a runoff election against Peronist economy chief Sergio Massa. In December 2023 he signed a decree on economic reforms that included an end to limits on exports and steps to loosen regulations. Reuters A New York Times description of its Milei magazine article calls him hostile to tariffs, arguing they undermine the market's natural hand. The New York Times
Milei laid out the AI part in a Financial Times op-ed titled "Argentina invites AI to free itself" published June 3, 2026. Financial Times In the piece and in later coverage, he wrote that AI should be allowed to develop without premature regulation and promised tech firms new laws in Argentina. Buenos Aires Times He also described a new type of company that could run without human employees, using AI agents or robots, according to Reuters reporting on the proposal. Reuters
That op-ed followed direct outreach to industry. Milei received representatives of OpenAI at Casa Rosada, a meeting linked to the announcement of the launch of Stargate Argentina. Casa Rosada Earlier, the first Artificial Intelligence Week in Argentina began headed by Milei. Casa Rosada In May 2024 he met with businesspeople, investors and professors expert in Artificial Intelligence, and he and his team discussed training initiatives to strengthen the developer ecosystem in AI and augmented reality, technology that overlays digital images on the real world. Casa Rosada
That outreach is now framed for a U.S. audience. The New York Times lists a magazine article titled "Argentina's Leader, a MAGA Celebrity, Is in a Race Against ..." The New York Times A separate Times article titled "Why Peter Thiel Is Decamping to the End of the World" carries a description stating Milei is turning Argentina into a haven for foreign investors. The New York Times Milei has also pledged to relocate Argentina's embassy to Jerusalem. Reuters
The broader context here is competition among countries over AI governance. Milei pairs trade deregulation, removal of export limits, and a promise of special corporate forms for AI-agent firms with a blunt non-intervention signal: no cepo, the term Argentines associate with capital and currency controls, applied to AI models, compute or deployment. Compute means the processing power used to train AI. For executives deciding where to train, incorporate or host infrastructure, the offer is predictability defined as an absence of upfront rules.
Looking at what this means for diplomats and investors, the questions are implementation and durability. A promise of new laws requires passage in Congress, detailed design for liability and data, and continuity beyond presidential statements. An embassy move, ideological affinity with MAGA circles, and courtship of OpenAI and other labs suggest Buenos Aires seeks to anchor its AI bid in closer political alignment with Washington and with private tech capital. Whether that alignment lowers country risk enough to redirect long-horizon AI investment will depend on legislation actually tabled, on energy and connectivity to support large-scale compute, and on how foreign courts and regulators treat entities organized under any new Argentine vehicle.
In my view, Milei's move clarifies an emerging split in AI statecraft. Most large jurisdictions debate what guardrails to impose and when. Argentina under Milei tests the opposite thesis, that the guardrail debate itself is the cost, and that a state can gain leverage by credibly committing not to regulate. It is a coherent extension of anarcho-capitalist ideas to the technology now at the center of productivity politics. The test will be whether a no-cepo pledge can survive contact with the disputes unregulated deployment will produce.
