This study investigates the ways in which Iranian sociologists conceptualize artificial intelligence as both an epistemic infrastructure and a geopolitical force within global knowledge production. Drawing on 32 in-depth interviews and grounded theory methodology, the research identifies a central analytic category: contested epistemic futures . This concept encapsulates the tensions between structural epistemic asymmetries and local efforts to reappropriate AI for culturally specific ends. Participants critiqued AI systems as carriers of Eurocentric epistemologies and instruments of digital colonization, but also highlighted strategic opportunities for local innovation, agency, and resistance. The analysis reveals five key thematic axes: epistemic asymmetry, decontextualization versus cultural specificity, technological determinism versus strategic agency, epistemic justice, and sociotechnical governance. These axes describe AI as neither a neutral tool nor an inevitable threat, but as a socially contingent technology shaped by political choices, institutional infrastructures, and cultural values. The study contributes to critical AI and decolonial epistemology by centering non-Western academic voices and proposing a relational, justice-oriented framework for AI governance.
