Alibaba chairman Joe Tsai says: There cannot be a winner in US-China AI race, because…

Alibaba Group chairman Joe Tsai has challenged the prevailing narrative of US-China artificial intelligence competition, arguing that the race has no definitive winner because success should be measured by adoption speed rather than model superiority. “When it comes to AI, there’s no such thing as winning the race. It’s a long marathon,” Tsai said at the All-In Summit 2025 in September, with recordings posted Wednesday. He emphasised that the AI race isn’t about who builds the biggest or most powerful model — it’s about who can deploy AI faster.

Tsai said the US should focus more on adoption and diffusion of AI instead of spending billions on developing larger models. He argued that “every week there’s a model that’s leading, but then the next week another model overtakes them,” making model superiority a fleeting achievement.