{"id":26377,"date":"2026-08-03T18:55:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T13:55:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=26377"},"modified":"2026-08-03T18:55:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T13:55:30","slug":"the-us-might-lose-the-ai-race-to-china-should-americans-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=26377","title":{"rendered":"The US might lose the AI race to China. Should Americans care?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"zephr-anchor\">\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Both Washington and Silicon Valley are in the midst of a collective freak-out over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/technology\/497100\/chinese-ai-models-kimi-qwen-claude-chatgpt\">China\u2019s recent advancements in artificial intelligence<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--block-placement _13j8zv42 _13j8zv40 duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<div class=\"duet--article--highlight _10sa9oml _1a70pe0\">\n<div class=\"_1a70pe6\">\n<ul class=\"duet--article--unordered-list _10sa9omi uyby7v0 pn04iq1\">\n<li class=\"uyby7v1\"><span class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup\">The release of the new AI model, Kimi K3, has reignited concerns in Washington and Silicon Valley that China\u2019s AI capabilities are catching up fast to the United States. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"_1a70pe6\">\n<ul class=\"duet--article--unordered-list _10sa9omi uyby7v0 pn04iq1\">\n<li class=\"uyby7v1\"><span class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup\">US concerns about Chinese AI can be separated into three general buckets: cybersecurity vulnerabilities, military capabilities, and the future of democracy. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"_1a70pe6\">\n<ul class=\"duet--article--unordered-list _10sa9omi uyby7v0 pn04iq1 _1a70pe7\">\n<li class=\"uyby7v1\"><span class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup\">While there\u2019s wide consensus that China\u2019s growing AI dominance is cause for concern, there\u2019s less about what to do about it, and some potential policy options may be counterproductive.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The latest round of consternation was triggered this month when a little-known Chinese AI startup called Moonshot released a new large language model called Kimi K3. The conventional wisdom had been that the leading AI models developed by companies like OpenAI and Anthropic were between <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2026-07-18\/moonshot-s-kimi-upends-conventional-wisdom-on-us-lead-over-china\">six to 12 months ahead of their Chinese competitors<\/a>. Kimi dashed those assumptions: now, analysts say American companies may be as little as two to three months behind.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Dean Ball, a former Trump administration official now with OpenAI, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/deanwball\/status\/2078133895766114412\">warned in a bleak post<\/a> on X that models like Kimi K3 could lead to a world of \u201cfull AI communism\u201d and a \u201cdystopian hellscape\u201d of AI under full government control.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Policymakers have worried for years now about China gaining an edge over the US in the AI race. Both the Donald Trump and Joe Biden administrations took steps to slow China\u2019s AI progress, including blocking the export of the most advanced US semiconductors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The White House is already <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/07\/23\/inside-the-white-house-debate-over-what-to-do-about-chinese-ai-01010997\">reportedly considering taking steps<\/a> to ban \u201copen-weight\u201d models \u2014 models that are easier to adapt for a user\u2019s own purposes \u2014 like Kimi K3 in the United States. The <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/mkratsios47\/status\/2079933645888880708\">Trump administration has also accused<\/a> Moonshot of using the unauthorized \u201cdistillation\u201d of one of Anthropic\u2019s models \u2014 basically using another model\u2019s outputs to train itself rather than raw data \u2014 as well as gaining access to blacklisted Nvidia chips in Thailand.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">But often lost in the debates about what to do about China\u2019s accelerating AI capabilities is the question of <em>why <\/em>the US cares about this at all. Obviously, the American companies developing the latest frontier models care about maintaining their edge, but why should it matter to Americans if the chatbot in their pocket was developed in Silicon Valley or Shanghai? And perhaps even more so, why should it matter what chatbots people in Nairobi or Brussels are using?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The concerns in the US about Chinese AI generally fall into three broad buckets: cybersecurity concerns; military and national security concerns; and human rights or democracy concerns.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">For the moment, concerns about who is winning the AI race can feel a bit abstract, but as AI becomes more embedded into governments, militaries, and ordinary people\u2019s lives, the difference will start to be felt in a much more material way at both a national and personal level. In general, there is a growing sense that it matters which of the world\u2019s vastly different superpowers builds the technology that could transform everything.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">\u201cPeople\u2019s relationship with AI is becoming foundational to how they live their lives, so the choices people make about whose model they use and where they are physically hosted, as they share some of their most intimate secrets and ask for life advice and business guidance, and run an increasing share of their life \u2014 those are incredibly important,\u201d said Ryan Fedasiuk, a former State Department technology adviser now at the American Enterprise Institute. \u201cIt\u2019s a contest between the United States and China to define the operating systems through which people live and work.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Here\u2019s what else America loses if it loses that contest.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p><h2 class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup\"><strong>Chinese AI could be more vulnerable to cyberattacks <\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The concerns about using Chinese AI are in some ways a repeat of the concerns over Huawei, the Chinese telecoms firm that built much of the world\u2019s 5G internet infrastructure, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/recode\/2019\/5\/30\/18642877\/5g-huawei-china-rural-mobile-broadband-ookla-politics\">but which the US government banned from operating in the United States<\/a> during the first Trump administration over concerns that the Chinese government could intercept information transmitted over these networks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Today, the concern is that many firms are increasingly integrating Chinese AI models into their systems, both because they are often cheaper and because they are \u201copen-weight.\u201d (\u201cWeights\u201d refer to the setting an AI model uses to process a user\u2019s inputs. \u201cOpen-weight\u201d models make these publicly available for users to tinker with, rather than charging for access.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">There are some indications that Americans using Chinese AI models are already vulnerable. A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.boozallen.com\/expertise\/cybersecurity\/whats-in-americas-code.html\">Booz Allen study<\/a> from earlier this year tested four Chinese models commonly used by US developers and found that three of them generated software with far more \u201chidden vulnerabilities\u201d that could be exploited by hackers than their US counterparts. There\u2019s no proof that the models were doing this intentionally, but the study did find that the models were \u201cchanging their behavior depending on who the user seemed to be or what country the request referenced.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">AI can also be used to <em>carry out <\/em>cyberattacks. Although nearly all the leading models have safety protocols meant to prevent this, they\u2019re not bulletproof. Even Anthropic\u2019s Claude, generally considered one of the most secure models, was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/politics\/468746\/ai-cyber-attacks-china-claude-anthropic\">adapted by Chinese hackers<\/a> last year to engage in cyber espionage. The open weights of the leading Chinese models could make it even easier to strip out the safety protocols.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p><h2 class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup\"><strong>AI could give China a military edge<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The simplest and most obvious argument for why AI matters for American national security is that it\u2019s all too conceivable that the US and China could be at war in the years to come, and AI could be a major factor in determining who wins.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, and Iran have shown that modern militaries <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/technology\/490800\/nuclear-ai-escalation\">are already extensively using<\/a> AI for intelligence collection and targeting. Semi- or fully-autonomous drone swarms <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/world-politics\/24107959\/replicator-drones-china-taiwan-ukraine-pentagon\">are a major component <\/a>of US plans for repelling a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Then there\u2019s the risk of AI being <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/417791\/ai-bioweapons-detection-pandemics-ginkgo-endar-bioradar\">used to generate new bioweapons<\/a> or other dangerous threats.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">US experts believe China has pursued a <a href=\"https:\/\/cset.georgetown.edu\/publication\/pulling-back-the-curtain-on-chinas-military-civil-fusion\/\">\u201cmilitary-civil fusion\u201d strategy<\/a>, encouraging the People\u2019s Liberation Army and Chinese defense contractors to collaborate closely with civilian technology companies and research institutions in order to gain an edge in military AI applications like <a href=\"https:\/\/s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/files.cnas.org\/documents\/Red-Lines_TECH_Final.pdf\">intelligence analysis and drone swarms<\/a>. It\u2019s difficult to know exactly which of these capabilities China is focusing on, but <a href=\"https:\/\/cset.georgetown.edu\/publication\/pulling-back-the-curtain-on-chinas-military-civil-fusion\/\">procurement data suggests<\/a> leading Chinese technology firms like Deepseek and Alibaba are involved in work with potential military applications. Analysts <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/asia-pacific\/chinese-military-researchers-tap-us-ai-models-train-defence-systems-2026-07-31\/\">also accuse China<\/a> of using outputs from US models like ChatGPT and Claude to train AI systems that could help develop China\u2019s defense capabilities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">And that\u2019s just conventional weapons. The US government <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/417791\/ai-bioweapons-detection-pandemics-ginkgo-endar-bioradar\">has alleged that<\/a> Chinese labs have \u201ccontinued to engage in biological activities with potential [bioweapon] applications\u201d amid concerns that artificial intelligence could help make such weapons more sophisticated and deadly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p><h2 class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup\"><strong>China could export digital authoritarianism<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Last year, <a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/artificial-intelligence\/ai-powered-toy-children-communist-party-talking-points\">it was reported that Miiloo<\/a>, a fuzzy children\u2019s plush toy with a built-in AI chatbot, would, if prompted, happily tell users Chinese Communist Party talking points like \u201cTaiwan is an inalienable part of China.\u201d The hubbub over Miiloo <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/tech\/tech-news\/senators-demand-answers-ai-toys-leading-manufacturers-rcna249631\">reached the US Senate floor<\/a>. While it\u2019s hard to imagine that many users were really asking Miiloo to help clear up East Asian territorial disputes, the affair illustrated much larger concerns about the dangers of letting AI models built by an authoritarian government with one of the world\u2019s strictest censorship regimes become the global standard.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Chinese generative AI tools are legally required to uphold the country\u2019s \u201ccore socialist values,\u201d according to a document published by its national cybersecurity standards committee. So it\u2019s little surprise that DeepSeek, the Chinese chatbot that sent shockwaves through the US tech industry in 2025, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2025\/jan\/28\/we-tried-out-deepseek-it-works-well-until-we-asked-it-about-tiananmen-square-and-taiwan\">politely declines to answer<\/a> when you ask it what happened on June 4, 1989, in Tiananmen Square.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">It\u2019s not just that Chinese AI could help shape the political narratives absorbed by billions around the world, at a time when US soft power is ebbing and surveys show people in many countries already now have a more <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/global\/2026\/07\/15\/people-in-many-countries-now-view-china-more-positively-than-the-u-s\/\">positive view of China than the United States<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The Chinese government is also <a href=\"https:\/\/carnegieendowment.org\/research\/2026\/03\/chinas-ai-empowered-censorship-strengths-and-limitations\">increasingly integrating AI<\/a> into its own censorship and surveillance apparatus, and is <a href=\"https:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/article\/713721\">exporting tools like facial recognition technology<\/a> to other authoritarian countries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The fact that under Xi Jinping, China\u2019s government was centralizing power and becoming more, not less, authoritarian in the years leading up to the recent advances in AI are a major factor driving the mistrust in its technology.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">\u201cI think many of the sincere arguments about the risks of these models and what China would do with them stems from the coercive authoritarian approach of China\u2019s current leader,\u201d said Mieke Eoyang, former US deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy. \u201cI don\u2019t think we would be having this conversation in the same way with someone like [China\u2019s previous leaders] Jiang Zemin or Hu Jintao.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">It is a serious concern if models built to conform to the values and political priorities of China\u2019s current government become the global standard. But some are skeptical of the idea that human rights and democracy should be the goal of AI competition, worrying that the damage has already been done. The premise of that idea has gotten \u201cshakier in recent years,\u201d says Steven Feldstein, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment and author of the book <em>The Rise of Digital Repression<\/em>. Under this administration, the US has cut support for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.csis.org\/analysis\/how-us-democracy-human-rights-and-governance-cuts-could-undermine-global-development-gains\">democracy and human rights programs overseas<\/a>, and often allied itself with authoritarian governments. Then there\u2019s the fact that at least one leading chatbot often seems to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2025\/07\/09\/nx-s1-5462609\/grok-elon-musk-antisemitic-racist-content\">mimic the racist and antisemitic views<\/a> of the world\u2019s richest man who is also an ally of the current president.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">While it\u2019s still true that Chinese AI reflects the authoritarian values and priorities of China\u2019s leaders, Feldstein notes, \u201cthis idea that the US is standing at the forefront of protecting and advancing democracy, human rights, that we\u2019re not sort of there to manipulate information or to push a narrative agenda that reflects the ideological preferences of its leaders, has started to fray.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">There\u2019s also a set of concerns around the topic of \u201cartificial general intelligence,\u201d the hypothetical point at which AI exceeds human capabilities and is able to improve itself. The concern, expressed by both US <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/technology\/artificial-intelligence\/us-government-commission-pushes-manhattan-project-style-ai-initiative-2024-11-19\/\">government commissions<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2025\/01\/18\/biden-sullivan-ai-race-trump-china\">senior officials in both administrations<\/a>, is that China is \u201cracing\u201d toward AGI and that whichever country achieves it first will have a massive geopolitical advantage. This is the type of thinking behind invocations of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/technology\/484250\/los-alamos-nuclear-ai-openai-chatgpt\">the nuclear-era Manhattan Project<\/a> to justify massive government investments in AI development.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Chinese leaders do not appear to view AI competition this way. \u201cThe US conversation around this is much more \u2018AGI-pilled\u2019,\u201d says Jeffrey Ding, a professor at George Washington University and expert on US-China technology competition. \u201cThe concern here is that we are very much on the brink of this explosion of more and more powerful AI that leads to it dominating everything.\u201d Chinese leaders, on the other hand, \u201cgenerally see AI as a productivity tool.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p><h2 class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup\"><strong>If Chinese AI is a problem, what should we be doing about it? <\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">This is not just a Beltway or Silicon Valley concern. A recent Pew survey <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/short-reads\/2026\/07\/23\/what-americans-think-about-the-global-ai-race\/\">found that 43 percent<\/a> Americans believe it is very important for the US to remain the leader in AI development, versus 22 percent who said it was not that important. Interestingly, the survey also found that most Americans believe China is already ahead on AI, though the expert consensus is that it\u2019s still slightly behind.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">\u201cWe\u2019ve gotten so used to the fact that the US has been the leading player in technological revolutions from like mobile internet to the internet era, so it\u2019s worrying to feel we may no longer have that dominant strength,\u201d said Selina Xu, China and AI policy lead in the office of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Even if there\u2019s some consensus that AI competition is a priority, there\u2019s less agreement on how to go about it. The challenge, Xu says, is \u201cHow do you manage the very concrete national security risks that come from competing with China on AI, but not turn technological competition into blanket protectionism?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Often, the policy responses to this challenge have been contradictory.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The Trump administration, in its first term, pioneered the policy of restricting the export of the most advanced semiconductor chips to China, but Trump undermined that policy last year by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/politics\/471884\/nvidia-chips-china-trump-huang\">permitting Nvidia to sell its advanced H200 chips there.<\/a> The move flummoxed China hawks in Washington and went against the preferences of <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/technology\/5504408-anthropic-ceo-dario-amodei-trump-chip-policy\/\">AI developers like Anthropic<\/a>, but probably had a lot to do with lobbying by chip maker Nvidia\u2019s Jensen Huang, CEO of the world\u2019s most valuable company.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">In some cases, the US may be inadvertently making China\u2019s models more appealing. In June, the Trump administration <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/politics\/492031\/anthropic-fable-claude-ban-trump-ai\">placed export controls<\/a> on Anthropic\u2019s advanced Fable model. This move prompted the company to take the model down for all users and led to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.piie.com\/blogs\/realtime-economics\/2026\/fable-mythos-saga-ad-hoc-us-ai-model-controls-could-help-china\">first time<\/a> that AI capabilities meant for the global public took a step backward.In response, French President Emmanuel Macron warned, \u201cWe will not buy any model made by [US AI] companies if from one day to the next you can just turn off the switch.\u201d Chinese models are hardly immune from concerns about kill switches or back doors, but if both governments involved in the AI race are seen as meddling, customers may just opt for whichever one is cheaper.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The latest flashpoint in the debate concerns the reports that the administration is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/07\/23\/inside-the-white-house-debate-over-what-to-do-about-chinese-ai-01010997\">considering banning open-weight models<\/a>. This <a href=\"https:\/\/images.nvidia.com\/pdf\/Open-Weights-and-American-AI-Leadership.pdf\">prompted an open letter<\/a> from dozens of leading tech companies including Nvidia and OpenAI defending access to these models as necessary for helping the US maintain AI leadership. Advocates note that open-weight models can help respond to vulnerabilities as well as create them: When a rogue OpenAI model <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/9db74b25-45ad-4187-b4d7-0e4d414fe41c?syn-25a6b1a6=1\">recently hacked into the startup Hugging Face\u2019s systems<\/a>, Hugging Face\u2019s engineers used an open-weight model developed by China\u2019s Z.ai to analyze the attack.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">Despite the frequent comparisons, AI is not a national security competition like the early days of nuclear weapons or the space race. It\u2019s a technology with potentially grave national security implications, that\u2019s also used by millions of people around the world to plan their Tuesday night dinner or help with their homework. The log-in for Claude is not <a href=\"https:\/\/www.armscontrol.org\/act\/2025-03\/features\/presidents-and-nuclear-football\">carried by a military officer<\/a> at the president\u2019s side. And much of the important work on developing these new technologies is being done by private tech companies, not government labs or defense contractors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">It may be that AI capability will help determine which country has the edge in the 21st century. It may also be that the benefits of these capabilities will be shared: Chinese companies might be no less capable than their American counterparts when it comes to developing new medications or clean energy technology.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"duet--article--article-body-component\">\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _10sa9omi itxwjq1 itxwjq0 pn04iq1\">The challenge of crafting technology to prevent a \u201cdystopian hellscape\u201d is to not accidentally make the existing world worse.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Both Washington and Silicon Valley are in the midst of a collective freak-out over China\u2019s recent advancements in artificial intelligence. The release of the new AI model, Kimi K3, has reignited concerns in Washington and Silicon Valley that China\u2019s AI capabilities are catching up fast to the United States. US concerns about Chinese AI can&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/platform.vox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/gettyimages-2286623351.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C10.732984293194%2C100%2C78.534031413613&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}