AI: A Cold War

By: Isabella Diaz-Ayala, December 8, 2025

An all-too-familiar tech race resurfaces as a direct result of the boom in artificial intelligence. The U.S. and China compete to monopolize this burgeoning industry, with China aiming to lead computer vision and facial recognition by 2030. Following the release of ChatGPT in 2022, America dominated the leaderboard, prompting a wake-up call for China.

In response to this shift, Beijing mobilized its government agencies and invested heavily to promote a sociopolitical initiative in AI. A rising Chinese startup, DeepSeek, gained momentum and served as a model to compete with U.S. computational tools. The success of DeepSeek has rattled American markets and has begun to close the AI gap between the two nations.

Despite being the world’s technological powerhouse, China’s biggest weakness lies in a lack of advanced AI chips, which are protected by U.S. export controls. In response, China is developing swarms of smaller, unified chips to mitigate this limitation. Simultaneously, the United States implements state-backed industrial policies such as the CHIPS Act.

The unfolding dynamic serves as the true test between the countries, which have loosened regulations to accelerate innovation. However, this competitive pressure raises significant concerns regarding AI safety and the potential destruction of two global superpowers.