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Xi Jinping’s plan to beat America at AI
China’s leaders believe they can outwit American cash and utopianism.
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A new IMF study concludes AI could boost America’s economy by 5.6 per cent in ten years’ time, compared with 3.5 per cent for China.
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The Economist
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On May 21, Mr J.D. Vance, America’s vice-president, described the development of artificial intelligence (AI) as an “arms race” with China. If America paused out of concerns over AI safety, he said, it might find itself “enslaved to PRC-mediated AI”, referring to the People’s Republic of China. The idea of a superpower showdown that will culminate in a moment of triumph or defeat circulates relentlessly in Washington and beyond.
In May, the bosses of OpenAI, AMD, CoreWeave and Microsoft lobbied for lighter regulation, casting AI as central to America’s remaining the global hegemon. On May 15, US President Donald Trump brokered an AI deal with the United Arab Emirates that he said would ensure American “dominance in AI”. America plans to spend over US$1 trillion (S$1.28 trillion) by 2030 on data centres for AI models.
