▶China has become a global leader in developing and releasing high-quality, open-weight AI models, with companies like DeepSeek, Zhipu AI (Kimi), and Alibaba (Qwen) frequently outperforming Western open-source alternatives on public benchmarks.Feb–Mar 2026

▶The United States maintains a significant lead in designing and manufacturing the most advanced, frontier-level AI models and the cutting-edge semiconductors required to train them, an advantage reinforced by strategic export controls.Feb–Mar 2026

▶China possesses a dominant and deeply integrated manufacturing ecosystem, excelling in the production, commercialization, and supply chain for hardware-intensive technologies like electric vehicles, robotics, drones, and batteries.

▶There has been a dramatic decline in the number of top Chinese AI researchers moving to the US for work, dropping from approximately 90% to 10-15% over the last three years, indicating a strengthening domestic tech ecosystem.Feb 2026

▶The true gap in AI capabilities between the US and China is heavily debated. Some experts assess China is only months behind and has reached 'virtual convergence' with Western models, while others argue Chinese models are over-optimized for benchmarks and lag significantly in real-world enterprise applications and are constrained by a lack of compute.

▶There is disagreement on the cost-effectiveness of Chinese AI. Some claims state models like DeepSeek-V2 operate at a fraction of the cost of competitors, while another expert asserts that Chinese foundation models are approximately 10 times more expensive to run than comparable US open-source models.Feb–Apr 2026

▶The source of Chinese AI model performance is contested. While most view models like DeepSeek as genuine technological achievements, at least one expert alleges its performance was achieved by illicitly distilling OpenAI's proprietary models and misrepresenting its compute resources.Feb–Apr 2026

▶The national security implications of open-source AI are disputed. One view holds that it's a risk because China is more effective at leveraging it, while another argues that China's independent development of advanced models undermines the case for restricting US open-source to prevent technology transfer.Feb–Apr 2026