Some questions about that global AI race

Just how far is the U.S. ahead of China in the AI race? The conventional wisdom is that the U.S. has an edge on China in artificial intelligence—and President Donald Trump’s ambitious new AI policy is built around keeping it. What it means to have an “edge” is ill-defined: it could be technological, economic or geopolitical. “I don’t know how to answer that,” said Suresh Venkatasubramanian, who served in the Biden White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, when DFD asked if the U.S. is ahead. “There’s so many dimensions.” “American [AI] models are about 3 [to] 6 months ahead of Chinese models,” White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks told DFD in a statement—though he added that when it comes to semiconductors, the U.S.’ lead “grows to years.” There’s also the proposition that China is ahead in some ways—in part because the U.S.’ chip export controls arguably led DeepSeek, a Hangzhou-based startup, to make breakthroughs in developing more efficient AI algorithms. Depending on which dimension you care about, the race could steer policy in very different directions.