Dominance to dependence: How the US–China AI race is shaping the future

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'.