The battle for AI hegemony

Is it a declaration of war? On July 31, at the opening ceremony of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference at Shanghai, Chinese President Xi Jinping positioned China as the leader of a new AI global order, challenging the US. Xi was reiterating the Chinese intent to not just shape, but govern this space. Because, while the US retains decisive advantage in frontier model performance, hi-end compute, and private capital, China already leads in research, patent volume, and industrial deployment.