Trump stakes everything on AI

US President Donald Trump has declared that whoever wins AI wins, making clear China is his main rival. He sees beating China to AI supremacy as outweighing any risks to humans.

“Whoever wins AI, WINS!”

China sees AI as power

Xi Jinping has not spoken as bluntly as Trump, but China views AI as a race and a power maximiser. AI has been central to China's technological ambitions for over a decade.

The summit matters to the world

Trump and Xi sit down on Thursday with AI ambitions as one of their most important topics. What they say and decide will matter to the whole world.

US leads on frontier models

American companies like Anthropic, Google and OpenAI lead on frontier models with the highest-performing systems. In March two thousand twenty-six, Anthropic's top model led by just two point seven percent.

US advantage rests on money

The US advantage stems from vast sums invested in leading AI companies. The stock market is booming and much of US economic expansion relies on AI companies' growth and projected profitability.

Chip restrictions limit China

Sweeping US government restrictions prevent American companies from selling advanced microchips to Chinese firms, which are crucial for developing cutting-edge AI models.

China's open weight strategy

China focuses on releasing open weight models that are downloadable and tweakable like open source software, not proprietary models. Models like Moonshot AI's Kimi K three perform close to frontier models while remaining freely available.

China's economic leverage play

Beijing's focus is deploying AI across its economy. China analyst Lizzi Lee says the US may lead at the frontier, but China could gain enormous economic and geopolitical leverage by making capable AI cheap, open and ubiquitous.

“AI isn't the moon landing. The US may lead at the frontier, while China could still gain enormous economic and geopolitical leverage by making capable AI cheap, open and ubiquitous.”

China dominates robotics

China is the world's biggest manufacturer of robots, with more than two million working in factories. It accounts for more than nine-tenths of global humanoid robot shipments in the first half of the year.

Trump dismisses safety concerns

Trump has called AI safety risks a hoax and says the US already has sufficient rules. He argues the only guardrails AI needs are a high IQ president and that regulation would stifle growth.

“We're leading now over China by a lot, and everyone else, and we're going to keep it that way.”

China takes cautious approach

Xi has urged leaders to keep close watch on AI risks and ensure the technology stays under human control. China introduced guides on data usage and algorithms before many other countries.

Different fears, different paths

Washington worries about capability escaping control. Beijing worries about capability threatening domestic stability. The countries have not shared understanding of AI threats like they did with nuclear weapons.

Cooperation talks begin

Ahead of the summit, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng discussed establishing a notification mechanism for serious AI incidents. Policy analyst Leia Wang calls this a good start.