While the U.S. chases breakthroughs, China is betting on scale, speed, and real-world adoption—and that may prove decisive in the AI race.

China plans to launch space‑based artificial intelligence data centres over the next five years, state media reported on Thursday, a challenge to Elon Musk’s

China rated the strongest country in converting AI capacity into production use, while Hong Kong trailed New York and London as finance hub

From compute and talent to energy and revenue, six charts show where the U.S. leads China in AI—and why that lead could prove fragile.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has emphasized the importance of advancing AI in his first formal meeting of 2026 with ministers.

Hisham Alrayes, CEO of GFH Financial Group, said China is prioritizing open models to spread AI's gains across its economy.

A source in China told Daily NK recently that North Korean trading companies operating in China are shipping in not only shelf-ready products like desktop and laptop computers but also a range of parts—including CPUs (central processing units), CPU coolers, motherboards, RAM, GPUs (graphics cards), and memory cards—since the beginning of the month.

China’s massive, modernized, and increasingly subsidized electricity system is emerging as a decisive advantage in the global competition to scale artificial intelligence, even as Western grids strain under rising demand.

Data is the fuel of agentic systems, but quality matters more than volume. China benefits from a vast collection of civil data. However, military AI requires distinct operational data such as telemetry, logistics flows, and combat realism, where the U.S. holds an edge.