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Why the US-China AI race won’t be won any time soon

For all the hype, both superpowers remain trapped by choke points – one in rare earths, the other in lithography – that won’t budge for a while.

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Both superpowers remain trapped by their respective choke points, and that status quo may endure for a while.

Both superpowers remain trapped by their respective choke points, and that status quo may endure for a while.

PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO

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From the United States this year has come a blizzard of words and initiatives meant to signal that it is in full kitchen-sink mode on artificial intelligence (AI) – and on the battle for pre-eminence over China.

This has been even more pronounced since the shock of

the AI “Sputnik moment”

, when the Chinese firm DeepSeek shot to fame, seemingly out of the blue, earlier this year, with models rivalling American ones.

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