Source: The New York Times

In July 2023, when one of this article's authors, Eric, met with Henry Kissinger, it seemed that China's senior leadership had not yet fully recognized the influence of artificial intelligence. At that time, the atmosphere of economic downturn was everywhere. However, just 19 months later, when another author of this article, Selena, visited China again, an optimistic mood greeted her.

The conversation at dinner revolved around DeepSeek and other AI chatbots. Electric vehicles raced past on the streets, and apps offered drone delivery services. Humanoid robots from Unitree Technologies danced and twirled handkerchiefs on the stage of the Spring Festival Gala, China's highest-rated TV program, making the company famous overnight.

This is the China we are facing. China has caught up with or even surpassed the U.S. in many technological fields, especially in cutting-edge areas like artificial intelligence. Moreover, China has formed a genuine advantage in technology dissemination, commercialization, and manufacturing. Historical experience shows that countries that can adopt and promote a technology the fastest will ultimately gain a competitive edge.

Therefore, it is not surprising that China chose to retaliate strongly against recent U.S. tariffs. To win the competition for future technological dominance—and thus global leadership—we must abandon the mindset that America will always lead the way.

For a long time, China has been lagging behind. When Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone in 2007, the internet revolution on the other side of the Pacific had just begun: only about 10% of Chinese people were online, and it would be seven years before Alibaba made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange.

The artificial intelligence race seems to follow the same pattern. In November 2022, ChatGPT debuted in San Francisco, followed by a series of imitations in China, with estimates suggesting most were several years behind. However, just as with smartphones and electric vehicles, Silicon Valley once again underestimated China's ability to quickly produce high-performance products. Today, the gap between China's artificial intelligence models and those in the U.S. has narrowed significantly. In fact, from certain benchmarks, DeepSeek's V3 large language model update released in March became the best non-inference model.

This competition is crucial. Leading American companies are largely developing proprietary AI models and charging usage fees, partly because their model training costs can reach hundreds of millions of dollars. Chinese AI companies, on the other hand, have expanded their influence by freely releasing models for public use, download, and modification, making these models more accessible to researchers and developers worldwide.

China's online retailers Shein and Temu, social media platforms Xiaohongshu and TikTok have already ranked among the top downloaded applications globally. Combined with the continuous popularity of China's free open-source AI models, it’s easy to imagine that teenagers worldwide will be immersed in China's applications and AI companion software, with lives arranged by autonomous intelligent entities made in China, supported by Chinese-made models.

In the internet revolution, the West's market dominance allowed the U.S. digital economy to expand to $2.6 trillion by 2022, higher than Canada's GDP. To allow the U.S. to benefit from the upcoming AI revolution—expected to have an impact greater than the advent of the internet—the world needs to choose the U.S. computing stack over China's, which includes algorithms, applications, and hardware.

In a decade, China has transformed from a "copycat country" to a world-class product giant, surpassing some Western products. Xiaomi, once known for imitating the iPhone, delivered 135,000 electric vehicles last year, while Apple abandoned its plans to produce electric cars after investing $10 billion over ten years. China is accelerating the deployment of robots and has plans for mass-producing humanoid robots; in 2023, the number of industrial robots installed in China exceeded the combined total of other countries. During this process, China has cultivated a large number of talents in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), built a strong supply chain, achieved stunning manufacturing capabilities, and fostered a highly competitive domestic ecosystem, where the only way to survive is continuous iteration.

This future dominated by China is approaching, and only by working together can we turn the tide.

We should learn from what China does well. The U.S. needs to share AI technology and research results more openly, accelerate innovation speed, and fully promote AI application across the entire economy.

Despite recent cuts in research funding, the U.S. still has significant advantages in university and private sector innovation. By contrast, China is still in the catch-up phase in areas like semiconductors, facing multiple challenges such as a real estate crisis, rising debt, and weak consumption. However, it must be noted that we should not underestimate China's determination to endure short-term economic pain for the pursuit of technological hegemony.

The U.S. has imposed export controls on advanced chips in an attempt to curb China's development in the AI field. However, China's recent breakthroughs show that these sanctions have instead spurred Chinese entrepreneurs to work harder on AI training and commercialization.

At a luncheon during Selena's visit to China, when the topic shifted to U.S. export controls, someone joked, "The U.S. should also sanction our men's soccer team so they can play better." This is a hard reality to accept, but China's technology indeed progresses under封锁because Chinese entrepreneurs have found innovative ways to achieve more with fewer resources. Therefore, it is no surprise that Chinese netizens responded with nationalist sentiments to U.S. tariffs and displayed abnormal optimism: the public is prepared for a major battle and believes time is on Beijing's side.

The era when China lagged far behind the U.S. has ended. If its innovation continues to surge, if China's AI companies continue to uphold an open philosophy, and if China can achieve 45% of global manufacturing by 2030 as planned, then the next chapter of the AI race will evolve into an all-out, multi-dimensional white-hot battle. By then, the U.S. must use all its advantages to respond.

Original Source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7501728883894288948/

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