The US and China are trapped in an escalating arms race for artificial intelligence, experts warn. China’s AI systems are warning American counterparts to quickly catch up with high stakes bids for technical domination.

Stanford Fresh Indicators AI Index Report 2025 It shows that the US lead in AI has almost disappeared. China’s AI systems now rival American models in major benchmarks, leading the world in research production, fostering anxiety in both Washington and Beijing, sparking urgent calls and keeping rivalry out of control. (Related: Defense, Technical Leader Warns that AI could unleash a new Cold War)

“This weapons race mentality is extremely dangerous,” Max Tegmark, a physicist and renowned AI researcher at MIT, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. He described both countries as “moving forward” out of fear of defeat and edge. “If they cut corners to overtake each other, we could all end up losing.”

Just a year ago, Tegmark had taken a critical lead in major domains where American AI systems, for example, excel in a variety of performance benchmarks testing general knowledge and problem-solving capabilities, but Stanford reports that its benefits evaporated in a few months.

“We were basically necked and necked,” Tegmark said, noting that the Chinese model is consistent with the US model on key academic and coding challenges. “In some measures, there’s no longer a difference. It happens much faster than expected people and has much meaning.”

These meanings range from perceptions of state power. Advanced AI is widely seen as a cornerstone of future economic and military strength, and Beijing, which overtakes parity prospects, or Washington, has injected a new sense of urgency Both sides of the Pacific Ocean. At the time, it was Sen. Marco Rubio, now Secretary of State, framed the issue from a national security standpoint in a 2023 statement.

“The heads of Intel, Nvidia and Qualcomm are profiting more than national security.” I said. “These CEOs are lobbying export controls designed to keep Chinese community parties away from AI technology. China is becoming stronger during the day with the support of the US capital and chips. We cannot allow China to acquire advanced AI chips.”

President Trump will speak on January 21, 2025 at the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)

While US tech companies still attract more private investments at around $100 billion in 2024, nearly 12 times the Chinese $9.3 billion, China’s AI labs are achieving world-class performance on a much more lean budget.

“It’s impressive and a little scary that China has done so much with much less money,” Tegmark said. “It shows that talent and strategy are everywhere. With high tech, a head start is by no means safe.”

In fact, China is currently leading AI research papers and patents, Stanford reports, with its top companies deploying AI models from Google and Openai, from Alibaba to Baidu. The narrow skill gap means that the AI ​​race will not be about whether China can catch up, but about how quickly and what it will do in its main position.

“Everyone who leads AI effectively writes global rules,” observed Tegmark. “Neither side wants to slow down as they fear the other side will move forward, but speeding up without adjustments is a way to reduce the safety of the world.”

Strategists are worried that US-China AI contests will be able to reconstruct global power dynamics. The cutting edge of AI can benefit everything from finance to cyberwarfare to autonomous weapons. In particular, Mosaic founder Mark Andreessen, American Technology Titans likened the launch of China’s lean and effective Deepseek R1 model to the new “Sputnik moment,” but China’s leadership has openly declared its goal of winning AI races by the end of the decade. Already, both governments are pouring resources into AI research and talent, driving the boom in AI initiatives across the country.

The Deepseek R1 is an AI Sputnik moment.

– Marc Andreessen🇺🇸 (@pmarca) January 26, 2025

“By 2030, our country will reach a new world-leading level in artificial intelligence theory, technology and applications and will become a major world leader in artificial intelligence innovation,” Beijing declared in a 2017 statement. According to To the Associated Press.

But Tegmark said competition comes with risks.

“This isn’t just about who launches the best chatbot,” he said. “Who is setting the agenda on how AI is being used around the world, and that has military and geopolitical consequences.”

Within the AI ​​hegemony sprint, global governance efforts are struggling to maintain their pace. Unlike the Cold War nuclear standoffs that ultimately created treaties and US-Russia communication lines, there is no binding international framework for AI.

Dan Hendrycks, the head of safety at Xai, owned by Elon Musk, reiterated the need for bilateral cooperation in a previous interview with DCNF.

“We sleepwalking into a multipolar world with zero adjustments,” Hendrix warned. “If China, the US and others can’t even talk about adjusting incentives, it’s not a rivalry. It’s a sharing crisis waiting to happen… Calling it a weapons race makes it a zero-sum.

2024, The United Nations has begun to discuss principles Responsible AI use and officials from both the US and China have expressed support in abstract terms of AI safety. However, the tangible agreement remains elusive.

“We were able to avoid spitting ourselves out by talking to each other and setting some basic rules,” Tegmark continued. “We need to think the same way as AI. Now it’s Wild West. Competition needs to balance collaboration and safety, or anyone can get worse.

As rivalry accelerates, ethical concerns are also growing. Both countries deploy AI in ways that raise questions, from facial recognition surveillance to deepfake propaganda.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywf0u-ivyoy

If the race is not confirmed, the Tegmark and others are afraid of scenarios where safety protocols will be added after the scene. AI systems that fail or work unpredictably – for example, autonomous weapons that misunderstand targets can cause a crisis. However, each superpower is worried that strict constraints could pass advantages to the other side.

“It’s a classic prisoner’s dilemma,” Tegmark said. “Neither of us want to hit the brakes first, which means that this turbo charging has very few guard rails on both sides.”

MIT physicists said the solution must ultimately be cooperative. While unilateral restrictions are not politically offensive, mutual agreement can ease the fear of delays. He points out that Rival has precedents to find common causes of existential risk, and to weapons control in the Cold War.

For now, AI races have shown no signs of slowing down. If anything, as China closes its final gap in capabilities, it enters a new, more unstable phase. The prognosis of the Tegmark is protected.

“For the first time, humanity is competing to create something that could ultimately cover us,” he said. “Whether this ends in a global AI renaissance or disaster depends on the choices we make right now. I would rather work together rather than a reckless contest to see who can deploy out of control first.”

He argues that each breakthrough in machine intelligence should raise our collective responsibility to manage it safely. Instead, US-China rivalry has had an opposite effect so far. It’s about pushing both players to move faster. The world watches carefully and worriedly as the two AI superpowers charge first. “Barrels towards the future,” Tegmark warned, “We’re not preparing remotely.”

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