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Trump and Xi face off on AI race as US-China jostle for dominance
The BBC notes US and Chinese AI competition is entwined with stock-market momentum and limits on China’s access to advanced US microchips.
BBC Business reports that US President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping are set to address AI ambitions, with both countries framing AI leadership as a strategic priority. A researcher from the Mercator Institute for China Studies said China views AI as a power amplifier, while Trump has emphasized winning against China and dismissed concerns about the technology’s risks.
The outlet says the US leads in “frontier” models, citing top-performing systems from companies including Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI. It also references research that DeepSeek’s model briefly matched a top US model in February 2025, and that by March 2026 Anthropic’s top model led by 2.7%, according to Stanford University researchers.
BBC Business adds that part of the US edge comes from heavy investment as frontier labs spend large sums to build the infrastructure needed to train new models. The piece also points to restrictions that limit US companies from selling advanced microchips to Chinese firms, even as new AI models continue to appear frequently in both countries.
The report concludes that while the US and China are global AI leaders, what counts as “winning” depends on measurement and there may be no clear finish line as companies race to pursue artificial general intelligence. It also notes China’s foreign ministry warned that threat-focused narratives can hinder global AI governance and called for cooperation to ensure benefits are shared.