When President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet in Washington this week, AI governance is expected to be at the top of the agenda. The United States and China have been racing to develop increasingly powerful AI systems, and neither has shown much appetite for slowing down. But not even the winner of the AI race will be exempt from the profound risks the technology poses.

The challenges posed by the development of artificial intelligence are no longer hypothetical. They are already a reality. Viewing AI solely through the lens of competition could cause China and the United States to miss opportunities to coordinate and address shared risks.

In the past few weeks, the global AI race has entered a new, existential stage. What makes this fluid status quo particularly perilous is the effort to exploit AI for global supremacy.

By Quan Zhao GENEVA—When Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump meet in Washington this month, AI will be near the top of the agenda

Moonshot AI’s Kimi is emerging as a Chinese competitor to Anthropic’s Claude, with increasingly comparable capabilities but notable differences in performance, personality and content restrictions. The comparison highlights how the two models reflect distinct technological approaches and regulatory environments as competition between the U.S. and China’s AI industries intensifies.

Evidence shows that the American model builds walls; the Chinese model builds bridges. One locks developing countries out of global governance; the other fights for their seat at the table.

The U.S.-led Pax Silica initiative seeks to reduce dependence on China across critical-mineral, semiconductor, and AI supply chains, but its success will depend on sustained commitment, concrete project delivery, and meaningful benefits for developing-country partners.

The age of robots is here, and the race to dominate the field is clearly led by America and China. Each country’s distinct advantages provide critical insights into the future of industry.

America’s Gold Eagle framework is fragmenting global technology, accelerating the securitization of AI and pushing the world closer to a new kind of technological cold war—one that threatens to make AI a source of permanent global conflict rather than a shared tool for collective progress.​

Competitiveness in artificial intelligence is no longer defined solely by breakthroughs in individual technologies. Instead, it increasingly stems from a self-reinforcing system in which technological innovation, industrial deployment and governance reinforce one another, creating durable systemic capabilities.