The Chinese AI industry has so far focused not on creating frontier models but releasing what is known as open weight models - downloadable and tweakable in a similar way to open source software. This contrasts with the approach taken by many US firms, which largely focus on proprietary models accessed through paid subscriptions or company platforms.

Chinese open weight models are being released at a rapid pace, with benchmarks showing the country's top models trailing US rivals by only a few months. Models such as Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 have become popular in China and overseas because they perform close to the frontier models while remaining freely downloadable and adaptable.

Beijing's focus is more about deploying the technology across its economy, China analyst Lizzi Lee from the Asia Society Policy Institute said." AI isn't the moon landing," she said.

" The US may lead at the frontier, while China could still gain enormous economic and geopolitical leverage by making capable AI cheap, open and ubiquitous." Image source, Future Publishing via Getty ImagesImage caption, Yang Zhilin co-founded Moonshot, one of China's most successful AI models, in 2023AI is also very energy hungry, and China is very well placed there, Rebecca Arcesati told Tech Life on the BBC World Service."

Chinese AI companies are able to access the electricity they need for a much lower cost and that really is an advantage," she said. In robotics - a field of AI that some believe will be world-changing - China has become the world's biggest manufacturer of robots, with more than two million working in the country's factories, the International Federation of Robotics estimated.

The nation is also the world's biggest maker of humanoid robots, accounting for more than nine-tenths of global shipments in the first half of the year, according to independent policy institute Chatham House. Chinese AI developers have showed "remarkable resilience and innovation" in spite of the shortage of advanced American chips, analyst Lian Jye Su from tech research firm Omdia said.

But US officials and AI firms have also alleged that Chinese developers closed the gap by using distillation - a technique that enables models to learn from more advanced platforms. Safety concerns?

China and the US may be in fierce competition, but their governments' approaches to safety concerns are markedly different. While some in the industry have recently warned that AI could pose an existential risk to humanity, Chinese researchers seem less concerned about that and are more worried about potential misuse of the technology and cyber war.

Responding to concerns over AI, Trump has said the US already has sufficient rules in place and that the only guardrails AI needs are a "high IQ" president." Washington has prioritised innovation and sought to reduce regulation in an effort to "keep American labs ahead", said information security officer Jayant Dave from cybersecurity firm Check Point Software Technologies.

Image source, VCG via Getty ImagesImage caption, China is the world's biggest manufacturer of robotsBeijing has taken a different strategy to the US hands-off approach. Xi urged the country's leaders to keep a close eye on AI's risks and ensure the technology was always "under human control"."

China has taken a relatively cautious and centrally-coordinated approach," introducing guides on data usage and algorithms before many other countries, helping to address many underlying concerns, Dave said. The use of guidelines, though not legally binding, sets expectations while giving developers room to innovate, said National University of Singapore AI ethics lecturer Jonathan Sim.

Will they cooperate? Despite calls for international cooperation, it remains unclear how the AI superpowers plan to address the technology's potential dangers - if at all.

The two countries have previously cooperated on existential threats such as nuclear weapons, but that was based on a shared understanding of the threat, which is not currently the case with AI, Dave said." Washington worries about capability escaping control.

Beijing worries about capability threatening domestic stability," he added. Trump has dismissed proposals for an industry-wide slowdown, arguing that it could allow Chinese developers to close the gap.

Ahead of the Trump-Xi summit, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng discussed establishing a notification mechanism for serious AI incidents. While the messaging from Trump on China in recent weeks has been "more antagonistic", the fact that AI is expected to be on the agenda was a "good start", said policy analyst Leia Wang from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

What we don't want, she added, was for an "unhealthy version of the race narrative to perpetuate", potentially escalating an already fierce rivalry in AI.

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