China-U.S. Rivalry Will Split the World into Competing AI Camps

AI robots were on display in Shanghai last month at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, where Premier Li Qiang said China will spearhead the creation of an international organization to jointly develop AI. (Qilai Shen/Bloomberg)

About the author: Susan Ariel Aaronson is a professor of international affairs at the George Washington University and Director of the Digital Trade and Data Governance Hub.

The U.S. and China both put forward plans for artificial intelligence last month. The two have long sought to lead on AI, and their competition has led to technological breakthroughs, lower costs, and wider use of the technology. But as their new plans illustrate, that competition may also divide the world into competing realms of AI products and governance.

In the U.S. plan, titled “Winning the AI Race,” AI is dual-use economic and military technology that can have important scientific applications. It describes how the government could dominate the world’s production of the “AI stack,” which the White House defined as hardware, models, software, applications, and standards.

In the Chinese plan, labeled an action plan for “Global Governance of Artificial Intelligence,” AI is “a key driving force of the ongoing scientific and technological revolution as well as industrial transformation, and an international public good that benefits humanity.” It is a wish list for global AI governance through multiple means-standards, national laws, principles, and international agreements.

The U.S. focus on winning and dominance reveals blind spots and gaps. While the two countries dominate AI today, no one can predict how AI will be designed and developed in the future, as China’s Deep Seek revealed. Researchers and firms from other countries could surprise us with new approaches to algorithms, training, and data use.

The U.S. plan also omits any discussion of the importance of trust to AI development, although trustworthy AI had been a focus of both the Trump and Biden administrations that preceded it. Trust in AI is declining in many countries, even as it is more widely adopted. Policymakers just don’t know yet how to govern this rapidly changing and complex technology.

The U.S. plan also calls for more funding for infrastructure and energy for data centers, but overlooks other key elements of the AI supply chain, including expertise and data. In contrast, China’s plan describes the need for sharing data, the free flow of data, and trust in data governance.

“We need to fully leverage the respective role of multiple stakeholders…to jointly promote international exchanges and dialogue on AI governance,” the plan says. “We need to build cross-border open-source communities and secure, reliable open-source platforms, facilitate the open sharing of basic resources” and more.

To be sure, China may have ulterior motives. And what its officials say publicly may not describe what they want privately.

Still, China’s plan manages to appear responsive to public concerns about AI. China calls on “all parties to take effective actions on the basis of the goals and principles of good for the people…fairness and inclusiveness, and open cooperation, and work together to promote global AI development and governance.”

The two superpowers seem to have switched tactics. The U.S. has long relied on a combination of soft-power, diplomacy, and incentives to get its way, while authoritarian China has used military power, market power, and bullying. That seems to be changing when it comes to AI.

Still, the U.S. vision of AI dominance may ultimately bring other countries along, whether they like it or not. The Trump administration believes that America’s AI adoption can set global software and hardware standards, while preventing “adversaries from free riding on our innovation and investment.”

Thus, the U.S. will combat Chinese influence in international organizations by incentivizing and inducing “allies to adopt complementary AI protection systems and export controls across the supply chain.” This language isn’t a call for collaboration but a demand that allies follow the U.S. lead.

This plan leaves little room for dialogue. Its main message is that AI will be made in the U.S. and exported abroad.

China, in contrast, is signaling it will listen and be responsive to the needs and views of other countries. Whether or not that is true, policymakers in countries like Brazil and India are more likely to respond to China’s responsive approach rather than America’s drive for dominance.

China-U. S. competition in AI has yielded improvements in technology and lower costs. But the competition over AI governance might end up dividing the world between China’s AI vision and products and those of the U.S. In the end, the U.S. may learn from China that AI leadership requires responsiveness to the needs of other countries.

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