The US-China race in artificial intelligence is about more than algorithms and processors: it is a struggle to control the rules, the infrastructure, and the future of the digital world. 

Just as the nuclear arms race became the strategic centrepiece of the Cold War, the contest for dominance in artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing (QC) is fast becoming the defining arena of twenty-first-century great-power rivalry. 

These capabilities are no longer peripheral research projects. They are now central to national security, poised to transform economic productivity, military effectiveness, and geopolitical influence. 

The country that establishes and secures a decisive lead will not merely set the pace for the next generation of civilian and military applications; it will have the means to recalibrate the global balance of power. 

Because AI and QC are inherently dual-use technologies, advances in one area can quickly be repurposed in the other. This enables the development of more autonomous weapons systems, more sophisticated surveillance architectures, and faster, data-driven strategic decision-making. 

Neither Washington nor Beijing believes it can afford to lose this race. 

For Washington, conceding leadership is not an option. The prevailing consensus is that the United States must remain ahead to safeguard both economic advantage and national security. 

Reflecting this urgency, Vice President JD Vance described the development of artificial intelligence as an 'arms race’ with China. 

Donald Trump’s return to the White House has ushered in a more assertive approach to AI policy driven by the 'America First' agenda. 

Early in his second term, he issued an executive order titled 'Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence', explicitly committing his administration to accelerating the development of AI with minimal constraints as a means of ensuring US technological dominance.

Shared goal, divergent paths

If AI is to become the foundation of global power, the question is no longer “whether” states will compete for dominance, but “how”—and on whose terms.

Both Washington and Beijing are convinced that mastery of AI infrastructure will determine who sets global standards, secures the world’s data flows, and controls the computational resources underpinning finance, defence, and beyond.

But they diverge in their methods, principles, and narratives. 

This logic is strikingly reminiscent of the nuclear competition of the Cold War, when fears of a 'missile gap' with the Soviet Union led to an intense acceleration of US strategic programmes. 

Then, as now, policymakers saw technological victory as the key to sustaining global primacy.

For Washington, allowing a rival, particularly China, to control this domain would mean relinquishing strategic leverage over the networks and platforms that define the modern world. 

Its newly unveiled “Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan” opens with an unequivocal statement of intent: “The United States is in a race to achieve global dominance in artificial intelligence (AI). 

Whoever has the largest AI ecosystem will set global AI standards and reap broad economic and military benefits.”

The plan’s America First orientation casts AI leadership as a core pillar of US national security. 

It proposes dismantling domestic regulatory constraints, accelerating innovation, expanding data-centre capacity, and ensuring semiconductor self-sufficiency— measures designed to safeguard America’s proprietary advantage and maintain its geopolitical leverage in the AI era. 

This approach focuses on controlled access, involving the restriction of advanced computing and chipmaking technology exports to China and the sharing of cutting-edge capabilities primarily with 'trusted allies'. 

This exclusivity-focused approach stems from the belief that protecting proprietary advantages is essential for maintaining commercial leverage and strategic superiority. 

China’s ‘openness’ strategy

Beijing responded to Washington’s action plan with one of its own, emphasising international cooperation in both development and regulation. 

Warning against AI becoming an “exclusive game” controlled by a few nations and corporations, China positioned itself as the champion of openness.

China's Global AI Governance Initiative has pledged to expand open-source development and share capabilities with developing countries, particularly in the Global South, as well as to promote multilateral governance through a new international body headquartered in Shanghai.

These initiatives are intended not only to institutionalise China’s leadership role but also to bring global rules, standards, and norms more closely into alignment with its strategic interests. 

Two objectives underpin this openness. 

First, by releasing advanced open-source models, Beijing is contesting the US approach of monetising AI as an exclusive, proprietary product. If these open-source platforms achieve the same level of performance as their US counterparts, the commercial advantage of exclusivity — one of Washington’s key competitive assets — could be significantly diminished. 

Second, by enabling these models to be freely adapted and exported, China embeds its technology in the digital infrastructure of emerging economies. This creates long-term dependencies and gives Beijing greater leverage over global technical standards and governance frameworks.

Who will dominate AI sovereignty?

Recent advances by Chinese AI firms are closing the performance gap with the US, raising the prospect of a world in which American dominance is no longer guaranteed — and in which Chinese models could be adopted on a par with, or even more widely than, those in the US.

In such a scenario, the contest would shift from technical superiority to control over the standards, ecosystems, and governance models embedded in global digital infrastructure.

As Microsoft President Brad Smith warned, “The No. 1 factor that will define whether the US or China wins this race is whose technology is most broadly adopted in the rest of the world. Whoever gets there first will be difficult to supplant.”

Beijing’s centralised, state-led model enables it to mobilise resources, align industry and exploit disruptive opportunities far more quickly than the US’s private-sector–driven approach. This agility could put Washington in a paradoxical position: technologically advanced, yet strategically outmanoeuvred.

For middle powers and emerging economies, the stakes are no less acute. Both Washington and Beijing export not just products but technological ecosystems that carry political influence.

Alignment with either superpower risks long-term dependency; avoiding both would require costly investment in domestic capacity—a politically difficult and time-consuming path.

Washington’s AI Action Plan implicitly presents its ready-made solutions as the pragmatic option. However, history shows that dependence on external providers often comes with strategic constraints.

Therefore, the concept of Sovereign AI—the capacity to develop, deploy, and govern a nation’s own AI systems without relying on foreign infrastructure—is gaining prominence. 

Sovereign AI is not simply about technological pride; it is about ensuring control over where AI workloads run, how critical data is stored and used, and who ultimately has the power to switch those systems on or off. 

In sensitive sectors—defence, intelligence, energy, and critical infrastructure—such autonomy could act as a strategic shield, insulating states from coercion, espionage, or supply-chain disruption.

Many countries are more tempted by the immediate option of choosing turnkey systems offered by Washington’s proprietary stacks or Beijing’s open-source platforms. 

However, both options pose risks. US solutions often tie users into closed commercial ecosystems, while Chinese offerings, although open in form, can establish deep structural dependencies that are hard to undo.

The real question is not simply which superpower will “win” the AI race, but whether the rest of the world can muster the capacity—and the political will—to carve an independent path. 

Otherwise, sovereignty in the digital era may become the first casualty of great-power competition.