China doubles down on practical AI as America spends billions and burns energy

America is throwing billions of dollars and burning through massive energy reserves in an arms race to dominate artificial intelligence before China gets there ￰0￱ goal for Washington is to build artificial general intelligence (AGI) powerful enough to outthink humans, and the Trump administration has said time and time again that AI will completely flip the global order as we inevitably descend into a ￰1￱ China is not chasing that ￰2￱ see, President Xi Jinping has ordered China’s tech companies like DeepSeek to stay grounded and build tools that work ￰3￱ wants software that helps farmers plant rice better and helps cops respond faster. Beijing’s endgame is intelligent systems that make life more efficient and can be exported everywhere, according to ￰4￱ funds practical AI while the ￰5￱ cash into AGI Xi hasn’t said much about AGI in years.

Instead, he wants tech companies in China to develop “application-oriented” ￰6￱ government reports show Chinese language models similar to ChatGPT are grading school exams, improving weather accuracy, dispatching emergency teams, and giving farmers advice on crop ￰7￱ Tsinghua University in Beijing, doctors are now working alongside virtual AI colleagues that provide up-to-date medical ￰8￱ are running textile checks and automotive production lines in “dark factories” without any human ￰9￱ ￰10￱ building plenty of real-world tools too. Google’s Pixel phones translate speech on the ￰11￱ consultants are using AI to write reports and ￰12￱ ￰13￱ are working on AI for drug discovery and ￰14￱ Washington doesn’t manage this ￰15￱ China, the state is deeply ￰16￱ January, Beijing announced an $8.4 billion AI fund for ￰17￱ then, provinces, banks, and cities have created their own AI support programs under the national “AI+” ￰18￱ Tuesday, the cabinet outlined broader goals: use AI in science labs, industry, and education to support economic development through ￰19￱ Silicon Valley, China is pushing open-source ￰20￱ models are free to download and modify, cutting down costs and helping local companies build ￰21￱ tactic has started to ripple into the West, with some ￰22￱ now also turning to open ￰23￱ AGI while China focuses on the tools it already has American companies OpenAI, Meta, and Google are still betting on AGI, believing that these machines could open up entire new sectors and give Washington massive advantages when another war breaks ￰24￱ the Wall Street Journal predicts artificial superintelligence could emerge by 2027, so to get there, companies are naturally rushing to stockpile chips, hire talent, and build massive data centers.

A congressional committee has even proposed a full-scale “Manhattan Project” for AGI, saying its purpose is to guarantee ￰25￱ in the ￰26￱ OpenAI’s recent release of GPT-5, which was promised to be a big step toward AGI, fell flat last month after CEO Sam Altman admitted publicly that the launch was messy and even warned of a possible AI investment ￰27￱ Schmidt, former CEO of Google , and tech analyst Selina Xu wrote in The New York Times , “In being solely fixated on this objective, our nation risks falling behind China, which is far less concerned with creating AI powerful enough to surpass humans and much more focused on using the technology we have now.” In Xiong’an, a new city built south of Beijing, China is already embedding AI in ￰28￱ February, local officials deployed an agricultural AI tool built by DeepSeek to help farmers choose crops, manage pests, and handle planting ￰29￱ city’s weather team uses it to improve ￰30￱ departments use it to analyze case data and decide how to react.

Xiong’an’s 12345 hotline, a government help center that handles hundreds of thousands of calls daily, uses DeepSeek to sort and route ￰31￱ aren’t pilot programs. They’re ￰32￱ is also spending big on data ￰33￱ unlike the sprawling ￰34￱ designed for AGI training, the ones in China are smaller and designed to support apps that already ￰35￱ on high-end chips are making it harder for China to train massive ￰36￱ they’re focusing on deployment instead. Still, China isn’t ignoring AGI ￰37￱ and DeepSeek both say they have AGI ￰38￱ think Xi may be holding back on pushing AGI aggressively … at least for ￰39￱ $50 free to trade crypto when you sign up to Bybit now