THE AMERICASMaduro Is Gone, but His Surveillance State Has a Chinese AI Upgrade on Order
Casual observers of Venezuelan politics might have assumed that the US capture and removal of former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro in January would guarantee the dismantling of his authoritarian regime and a rupture with Beijing. Yet one of the most consequential pieces of Maduro’s authoritarian legacy remains intact.
Casual observers of Venezuelan politics might have assumed that the US capture and removal of former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro in January would guarantee the dismantling of his authoritarian regime and a rupture with Beijing.
After all, Donald Trump declared that the United States was ‘in charge’ of Venezuela, that ‘we’re going to run everything’ and that Delcy Rodriguez, the acting president, ‘really doesn’t have a choice’.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, reportedly in constant contact with Rodriguez via WhatsApp, said Washington had ‘tremendous control and leverage over what those interim authorities are doing and are able to do’.
Yet one of the most consequential pieces of Maduro’s authoritarian legacy remains intact.
As we show in our new report, Warning Signals: Venezuela and the risk of Chinese AI-enabled digital authoritarianism, Venezuela retains an apparatus of digital surveillance and political control built partly with Chinese technology. Before Maduro’s removal, Caracas had also begun preparing to add something new: Chinese artificial intelligence.
For two decades, Venezuela imported much of the plumbing of digital authoritarianism, such as telecommunications equipment, identity systems, cameras, command centres and technology for controlling the internet. In July 2025 it took a potentially more consequential step: signing an agreement with Chinese AI company iFlytek.
After years of buying the infrastructure, Venezuela had contracted for the intelligence that could run on top of it. That AI layer has not yet been built. There is no public evidence that iFlytek, or any other Chinese company, is currently operating an AI surveillance system inside Venezuela. But the intention is unusually explicit.
In January 2025, Maduro announced the creation of a national command room and ordered the establishment of 5,334 local data rooms, embedded in Venezuela’s communal governance system, to feed it. The national command room, he said, would operate with artificial intelligence and Chinese technology.
The largest component is the Carnet de la Patria, or Homeland Card, a digital identity and welfare system built with significant assistance from ZTE. Separately, Chinese companies including CEIEC, Huawei, Hikvision and Dahua have played varying roles in Venezuela’ s public-security cameras and command centres, its telecommunications networks and its internet-control infrastructure.
