A recently released Gallup poll shows that while 93% of respondents in China felt that AI would benefit their country, only 37% of Americans shared the same optimism. For comparison’s sake, the opinions of Chinese citizens are similar to those held by other Asian powerhouse economies, such as Vietnam and Singapore; public opinion in the U.S. is closer to that of Afghanistan.
While it remains unclear whether U.S. anxiety over AI and the infrastructure required to support it stems from foreign influence or genuine grassroots concerns, domestic activists are exploiting that anxiety to advocate restrictions that hinder America’s ability to build the infrastructure needed to compete.
Already, opposition to the construction of new data centers has led to over a hundred projects being either delayed or canceled. New restrictions will hamper not only the development of new and better AI systems, but if broadly written, may even hamper other industrial projects that create a similar footprint.
If we continue to let our fears outpace our interests, we risk delivering a devastating blow to the most innovative sector of our economy. This, rather than some science fiction scenario involving killer AI-guided robots, is the real existential threat to our national and economic security.
According to the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI), the gap between the most advanced AI systems developed in the United States and China has narrowed dramatically. Clearly, some of this rapid catch-up is due to Chinese companies leveraging model distillation – using outputs from leading American AI systems to help train their own models, bypassing massive R&D costs. But we shouldn’t ignore the real gains that are resulting from China’s focus on AI development, including infrastructure.
Given China’s trajectory, it is not surprising that their official state mouthpiece, The Global Times, has published several pieces rejecting calls by U.S. tech titans such as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to slow down development of AI. A recent editorial by Shen Yi, director of the International Research Institute of Global Cyberspace Governance at Fudan University, for example, argued that “decelerating is designed to maintain an advantage over China.”
While it is not clear that the U.S. public views AI through the lens of competition with China, China’s government clearly sees it this way. Nearly 10 years ago, China’s State Council announced a “New Generation Artificial Intelligence Plan.” Recognizing that AI had become “a new focus of international competition,” the plan asserted that China must implement a “development strategy to accelerate the deep integration of AI with the economy, society and national defense” with specific benchmarks to be achieved by 2020, 2025, and 2030. A year ago, the State Council expanded on this earlier strategy, releasing the “AI+ Action Plan,” and updating China’s goals for 2027 and 2030, targeting 2035 as the year that “China will enter a new stage of intelligent economy and intelligent society.”
More recently, Chen Yixin, party secretary and minister of the Ministry of State Security, published a long essay in the magazine China Cybersecurity where he laid out how China’s leadership currently views AI. Reflecting the CCP’s obsession with controlling information, Secretary Chen argues that one of the central concerns over AI is its potential to facilitate the spread of false political information. He also notes concerns about the use of AI to conduct cyberattacks, gather sensitive intelligence, and allow some countries (an indirect reference to the U.S.) to monopolize control over important technology. Despite these concerns, Chen understands the military importance of AI dominance, observing that “[w]hoever can achieve more refined perception, more accurate judgment, and more precise strikes through algorithms will gain the initiative on the battlefield.”
The Chinese government’s position on AI also reflects the broader strategic goal of greater global influence. In a July speech in Shanghai, Xi Jinping stressed openness in the development of AI technology. This can be taken as a reference to China pushing its open-weight models over the closed frontier models offered by U.S. firms. It’s important to understand that open-weight does not mean open-source. While Chinese AI models can be downloaded and modified, they cannot be recreated. If businesses and governments across the Global South – an area where China is heavily focusing – come to rely on these subsidized Chinese models, this will give Beijing significant long-term influence with the developing world. In a sense, China is covertly seeking to dominate the supply of AI technology in a way that is strikingly similar to their current control of critical minerals and rare earths.
Obviously, municipalities need to do their due diligence when allowing large new commercial developments into their communities. But the U.S. cannot afford to sleepwalk through a technological race where our main strategic competitor views every algorithm as a matter of economic strength, national security, and global influence. If we continue to mire ourselves in delay and indecision, we risk waking up to a world where AI – which President Xi acknowledged in Shanghai was an American invention – becomes a technology ruled out of Beijing.