China and the United States Locked in an AI Race

Beijing-based Moonshot released its Kimi K3 model in July, a system that has narrowed the performance gap with leading U.S. models from Anthropic and OpenAI and, in some benchmarks, surpassed them. The company paused new subscriptions after demand outstripped its limited compute capacity. Chinese firms have also begun offering the world’s most capable open-source models, which can be downloaded, modified and self-hosted, and are gaining traction among Western enterprises and in African markets.

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Export controls have restricted Chinese access to advanced chips, hampering both training of larger models and inference services. Nonetheless, U.S. private capital continues to fuel rapid scaling for companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI, and talent pipelines remain robust.

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Daniel Remler, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, argues that the rise of affordable, high-performing Chinese AI could make those systems the default in developing nations, potentially shifting political alignments toward Beijing. He also stresses that if the United States sustains its current strengths, it will retain “serious geopolitical leverage” and the ability to shape global AI governance.

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• Delangue’s assessment frames China’s open-model dominance as a near-term reality.

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• McBride emphasizes China’s advantages in robotics, autonomous vehicles and state operations while underscoring the U.S. compute lead.

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• Remler highlights both the risk of Chinese AI becoming the default abroad and the importance of U.S. continued investment to preserve strategic leverage.

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• “If Chinese AI technology becomes the default for developing countries, those countries may be more likely to align themselves politically with Beijing and Chinese AI companies get a beachhead in their markets,” — Daniel Remler

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• “This not only undermines their ability to train larger and more capable AI models, but also to serve inference on those models,” — Remler. Moonshot

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• “If the United States can sustain these strengths, it will retain its AI advantage, serious geopolitical leverage, and ability to shape global AI rules,” — Remler. But

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