There's more than one way to win the AI arms race

A deep dive on China's AI strategy and why it's working

In last week’s post I wrote about the good week that China has had, off the back of a statesman-like speech from Xi on AI, the release of a benchmark-topping new AI model from Beijing-based Moonshot AI, and the publication of the latest Pew global public opinion survey.

This week I want to get in a bit deeper on the background of one of these themes: how China is competing on AI when it is American companies that are pushing the frontier. A number of Silicon Valley start-ups and companies in the global south are opting for Chinese AI instead of American. It turns out that there’s more than one way to win the AI arms race.