Who is winning the US-China AI race?
Despite controlling 75% of global AI compute, America watches as China closes the performance gap with a fraction of the resources.
The answer
The US-China AI competition has become a defining geopolitical contest. As of March 2025, the US controls 75% of worldwide AI compute capacity, while China's share dropped from 37.3% in 2022 to just 14.1%. The Biden administration's 2024 export controls restricted advanced chips, HBM, and semiconductor equipment to Chinese entities, with the January 2025 AI Diffusion Rule extending restrictions to over 100 countries. Huawei is projected to produce only 200,000 domestic AI chips in 2025. Yet despite operating with roughly five times less compute, Chinese models narrowed the performance gap from double digits in 2023 to near parity in 2024, exemplified by DeepSeek's remarkable efficiency.
Source: AI Frontiers
- geopolitics
- chip controls
- US-China
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