Mark Kennedy, Wilson Center
America is making a critical mistake in its AI strategy—it is overreaching in playing defense but doing the opposite in playing offense. While Washington is busy building regulatory walls to restrict access to AI compute power (a term encompassing computational resources used to train and run AI models), China is circumventing these barriers and strategically developing asymmetric advantages.
Recognizing that it will take time for China to match the US in high-performance AI compute, Chinese companies have focused on developing more efficient, less expensive AI technologies. They are also seeking to build dominant positions in open-source AI, cloud infrastructure, and global data ecosystems. These strategies enable China to offer cheaper, unrestricted AI access to countries frustrated by US policies, embedding itself into emerging markets in ways that will be difficult to dislodge. This is not just an AI competition—it is a battle for control over the global digital infrastructure today and in the future.
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/americas-ai-strategy-playing-defense-while-china-plays-win
