The race for AI: how the US and China are vying for technological dominance

“Whoever wins the race for AI WILL WINN!”

US President Donald Trump does not hide his ambitions in the field of artificial intelligence, as well as the fact that he considers China the main rival of the United States.

His Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping has not been as direct but appears to have a similar view.

“Beijing largely views this as a race; they strongly believe that China should be a leader in AI—they see AI as a means to maximize their power,” says Rebecca Archesati of the Mercator Institute of Chinese Studies.

The evidence for this goes beyond mere rhetoric: AI has been at the core of China's technological ambitions for more than a decade, whether Xi emphasizes it publicly or not.

For Trump, beating China in the race for AI supremacy outweighs any risks the technology poses to humans - which he calls a "myth."

China's Foreign Ministry has warned that "threat narratives" and confrontation are hampering global regulation of artificial intelligence, calling for cooperation to ensure it benefits everyone.

That means that when the two presidents sit down on Thursday, there will be few topics more important than their plans for artificial intelligence—and what they say and decide will matter around the world.

Is the US leading in this race?

No one doubts that the United States and China are the world leaders in AI, but who is considered the winner depends on how success is measured.

American companies are leading the way in so-called “cutting-edge models”: the systems with the best scores in most tests come from firms such as Anthropic, Google and OpenAI.

According to Stanford University researchers, in February 2025, Chinese company DeepSeek's AI model "briefly tied with the best American model," and as of March 2026, Anthropic's top model was leading by a small margin of "just 2.7%."

Part of the U.S. advantage comes from the huge amounts of money being invested in leading AI companies, as cutting-edge labs spend huge sums of money to build the infrastructure to train new models.

The stock market is booming, and much of the U.S. economy's growth is driven by the enormous growth—and projected profitability—of AI companies.

This may partly explain why President Trump sees AI as key to US success.

Another factor limiting China's capabilities is sweeping government restrictions placed on American companies that prevent them from selling advanced microchips to Chinese firms - these chips are critical to the development of advanced models.

China Advantage

Despite chip supply constraints, new AI models are emerging almost monthly in both countries, and it's unclear what "winning" in the AI race will actually mean, or whether there's even a finish line to the race.

Many companies are racing to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI), a theoretical form of AI capable of learning, reasoning, and performing a wide range of tasks at or above human levels.

The Chinese AI industry has so far focused not on creating advanced models, but on releasing so-called models with open weights - these are neural networks whose creators have made their trained parameters (weights) freely available, but have not always opened the source training code or datasets. These models can be downloaded and customized similar to open source software.

This contrasts with the approach of many US companies, which largely focus on closed models accessed through paid subscriptions or enterprise platforms.

Chinese open-weight models are being produced at a rapid pace, and if tests are to be believed, leading Chinese designs are only a few months behind American competitors.

Models such as Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 have become popular both in China and abroad because they offer performance comparable to cutting-edge models while still being free to download and customize.

According to Chinese analyst Lizzie Li of the Asia Society Policy Institute, Beijing is paying more attention to introducing this technology into all areas of the economy.

“AI is not the moon landing,” she said. “The United States may be leading the way, but China can still gain enormous economic and geopolitical advantage by making effective artificial intelligence cheap, open, and ubiquitous.”

AI also consumes a lot of energy, and in this regard China is in a very advantageous position, Rebecca Archesati told the BBC.

"Chinese AI companies can get the power they need at a much lower cost, and that's a real advantage," she said.

In robotics—a branch of artificial intelligence that some say will change the world—China has become the world's largest producer of robots, with more than two million robots working in its factories, according to the International Federation of Robotics.

The country has also become the world's largest producer of humanoid robots, accounting for more than 90% of global shipments in the first half of the year, according to independent think tank Chatham House.

Chinese AI developers have demonstrated “remarkable resilience and innovation” despite a shortage of cutting-edge American chips, said analyst Liang Jie Su of technology research firm Omdia.

But U.S. officials and AI companies also say Chinese developers have closed the gap by using “distillation,” a technology that allows models to learn from more advanced platforms.

In response, China's Foreign Ministry said AI development is "fueled" by China's "concept of broad consultation and joint contribution for common benefit."

Security problems?

China and the United States compete with each other, but their governments' approaches to security differ markedly.

While some in the industry have recently warned that AI could pose an existential threat to humanity, Chinese researchers seem less concerned about this than potential abuses of the technology and cyber warfare.

Responding to concerns about AI, Trump said the US already has sufficient regulations in place and that the only protection needed for AI is a president with a "high IQ".

“We are now well ahead of China and everyone else, and we intend to maintain that advantage,” Trump said, adding that the United States does not intend to “hold back the development of something that will surpass the industrial revolution in importance.”

Washington is prioritizing innovation and seeking to reduce regulation to “maintain the leadership of American labs,” said information security specialist Jayant Dave of cybersecurity company Check Point Software Technologies.

Beijing has chosen a strategy that differs from the non-interventionist American approach.

Xi called on the country's leaders to closely monitor the risks posed by AI and ensure that the technology always remains "under human control."

“China has taken a relatively cautious and centrally coordinated approach,” Dave said, adding that China was earlier than many other countries in introducing guidelines on the use of data and algorithms, which helped address many concerns.

The use of such guidelines, while not legally binding, sets the framework for what is expected of developers while leaving room for developers to innovate, said Jonathan Sim, a lecturer in AI ethics at the National University of Singapore.

Will China and the US cooperate?

Trump has rejected suggestions that the industry as a whole would be slowed down, arguing that it could allow Chinese developers to catch up.

Ahead of the Trump-Xi summit, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng discussed creating a notification mechanism for serious AI-related incidents.

While Trump's remarks toward China have been "more hostile" in recent weeks, the fact that AI is expected to be on the agenda is "a good start," said policy analyst Leia Wang of the Carnegie Endowment.

No one wants “an unhealthy version of the race narrative” to take hold, which could escalate the already bitter competition in AI, she said.