本文是“新世界秩序”系列的一部分，该系列探讨战后国际体系的解体，以及各国如何在美国退居二线的背景下进行调整。
This essay is part of “The New World Disorder,” a series exploring the disintegration of the postwar international system and how countries are adjusting as America steps aside.
没人会想到人工智能革命会出现在这里——墨西哥华雷斯市边缘，对面是一片简陋住房，罗杰·维尔奇斯在那里的路边摊上卖托斯蒂托斯玉米片和可口可乐。
No one expected the artificial intelligence revolution to appear here, on the edge of the Mexican city of Juárez, across from a patch of tiny homes where Roger Vilchis sells Tostitos and Coca-Cola from a roadside stand.
他的社区满是尘土和酷热，狗儿在土路上睡觉，诺特诺音乐在空气中回荡。铁丝网围栏上的一个牌子警告道：“禁止在此倾倒垃圾或死畜。”
His neighborhood is all dust and heat, with dogs sleeping in the dirt roads and norteño music bouncing through the air. A sign on a chain-link fence warns: “It is prohibited to throw garbage or dead animals here.”
所以几年前，当一栋长长的白色建筑在一块相当于几个足球场大小的土地上拔地而起时，25岁的维尔奇斯先生以为可能是个购物中心。结果发现是一家工厂——而且不是普通的工厂。
So when a long white building started rising a few years ago on a tract of land the size of several football fields, Mr. Vilchis, 25, figured it might be a shopping center. It turned out to be a factory — and not just any factory.
令邻居们惊讶的是，这家工厂属于英业达，这家台湾巨头年销售额超过200亿美元，生产人工智能服务器。
To the astonishment of the neighbors, the plant belonged to Inventec, a Taiwanese giant with over $20 billion a year in sales that makes servers for artificial intelligence.
这个蓝领社区没有出现抵制AI的声音：“我们认为这是好事，”维尔奇斯告诉我，“我们意识到会有更多工作机会。”
No A.I. backlash in this blue-collar barrio: “We saw it as good,” Mr. Vilchis told me.
英业达工厂是这片与德克萨斯州接壤的沙漠山谷中几家新服务器工厂之一，它巍然屹立，见证着墨西哥如何在特朗普政府不断升级的对自由贸易的攻击中生存下来——甚至进行反击。
“We realized there will be more work.”
在二战后全球贸易架构摇摇欲坠之际，墨西哥正在检验这样一个观念：美国能否单方面与世界其他地区脱钩。
The Inventec facility, one of several new server factories in this desert valley bordering Texas, is a looming testament to how Mexico is surviving — and even challenging — the Trump administration’s escalating assault on free trade.
墨西哥经济部长马塞洛·埃布拉德近日表示：“自由贸易不再是我们所处的现实。”尽管如此，墨西哥和其他中等强国正押注于自身的竞争优势及对美国经济的不可或缺性，以抵御特朗普政府的关税攻势。随着华盛顿全力争霸全球人工智能市场，墨西哥已成为美国人工智能繁荣日益重要的供应商，提供了美国进口计算机服务器的三分之一以上。
At a moment when the post-World War II global trade architecture is teetering, Mexico is testing the notion that the United States can unilaterally decouple from the rest of the world. While “free trade is no longer the reality we are living,” as Mexico’s economy secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, put it recently, Mexico and other middle powers are banking on their competitive advantages and indispensability to the U.S. economy to withstand the Trump administration’s tariff campaign. As Washington throws its might into dominating the global A.I. market, Mexico has become an increasingly important supplier for America’s artificial intelligence boom, providing more than one-third of the United States’ imported computer servers.