Despite the chip restrictions, new AI models are coming out almost monthly in both countries and it’s unclear what “winning” the AI race would actually mean, or whether there is a finish line at all.

Many companies are racing to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI), a theoretical form of AI capable of learning, reasoning and performing a wide range of tasks at or above the level of humans.

The Chinese AI industry has so far focused not on creating frontier models but releasing what is known as open weight models – downloadable and tweakable in a similar way to open source software.

This contrasts with the approach taken by many US firms, which largely focus on proprietary models accessed through paid subscriptions or company platforms.

Chinese open weight models are being released at a rapid pace, with benchmarks showing the country’s top models trailing US rivals by only a few months.

Models such as Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 have become popular in China and overseas because they perform close to the frontier models while remaining freely downloadable and adaptable.

Beijing’s focus is more about deploying the technology across its economy, China analyst Lizzi Lee from the Asia Society Policy Institute said.

“AI isn’t the moon landing,” she said. “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.”