US-China AI Competition: The Path Is More Important Than the Technology

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is ushering in a new round of technological revolution, becoming a key arena in great-power competition. Both the United States and China have firmly secured positions in the world’s top tier of AI development. With its technological first-mover advantage, the United States is leading in cutting-edge technologies and high-end markets, while China is rapidly expanding AI across application scenarios by leveraging its massive market scale and robust manufacturing foundation. Great-power technological competition is not merely a contest of technology; it is a comprehensive showdown involving technological development, industrial application, and national strategy. To fully understand the AI competitive landscape between the United States and China, you cannot look only at one moment’s technological strength—you also need to compare and analyze it from the perspectives of development models and strategic choices. What kind of posture is the AI development of the two countries actually in? What advantages and weaknesses does each side have in key areas? How do their AI development models differ? How will this competition unfold in the future?

Strength: A comparison of core AI technologies, foundational capabilities, and industrial applications in the U.S. and China

On the technology and talent front, the United States remains ahead overall, but the gap is narrowing. In terms of models, the United States maintains an advantage of roughly a 7-month lead in the performance of frontier AI large models. However, China’s large models are achieving continuous performance breakthroughs under constrained computing resources, and the gap is trending toward convergence. In chips, the United States monopolizes the design and R&D of high-end chips, while China has developed strengths in wafer manufacturing, testing, and packaging, and the share of domestic chips in the market is steadily increasing. In terms of compute infrastructure, the United States accounts for 75% of the world’s intelligent compute scale, while China accounts for 15%, but China’s compute capacity is growing faster, with higher scheduling efficiency and lower costs. In talent, the United States attracts more than half of the world’s top AI researchers, but the total number of Chinese researchers is close to that of the United States, and talent is returning home at an accelerating pace.

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