From Foreign Policy · Agathe Demarais · · 1m 50s
China’s AI Rollout Has No Off Switch
China’s AI strategy lacks a kill switch, enabling rapid global diffusion without safety controls.
In brief
China’s AI strategy lacks a kill switch, enabling rapid global diffusion without safety controls. China’s AI rollout has no off switch, allowing widespread adoption without safety mechanisms. Originally reported by Foreign Policy.
Historical Parallel
In 1957, Washington projected Soviet intercontinental missiles would reach 500 by 1960, but the count was wrong.
AI Race Strategy
Beijing measures AI success through adoption and diffusion across its economy, not technological benchmarks.
China’s AI Models
China’s best models, like Kimi K3, Qwen 3.8 Max, and GLM-5.3, are months behind U.S. frontier models.
AI Plus Plan
China’s 2025 AI Plus action plan targets 70% AI agent penetration by 2027 and 90% by 2:30.
Industrial Data
Beijing designates data as a factor of production to boost manufacturing through ai.
Industrial Applications
By mid-2025, nearly half of China’s industrial firms deployed ai models, aiming for 1,000 agents by 2027.
Embodied AI
China installed 354,000 industrial robots in 2025, producing 12,800 humanoid robots, 90% of global total.
Open-Weight Models
Chinese ai models are open-weight, allowing download and fine-tuning without server restrictions.
Self-Reinforcing Cycle
Chinese models become industry standards as developers adapt them for specific use cases.
Safety Implications
U.S. safety debates focus on kill switches for closed models, but open-weight models lack recall mechanisms.
GLM-5.3 Release
Zhipu delayed publishing GLM-5.3 weights for two weeks due to cybercapabilities concerns.
Model Adaptations
Developers created 80 variants of GLM-5.3, including security-research tools that remove safety guardrails.
U.S. Adoption
Nvidia published a compressed version of GLM-5.3 to optimize disk space and memory use.
Invisible AI
China’s ai advances are invisible due to widespread diffusion, making them hard to track or stop.
What it means
China’s AI rollout has no off switch, allowing widespread adoption without safety mechanisms.
