China’s AI race favors deployment over frontier bets, and it feels familiar

Gordon Saft’s field trip to China shows the AI competition isn’t a simple U.S.–China clash of visions but a shared trajectory focused on embedding AI into the physical world—factories, EVs, and everyday life—while export controls, safety concerns, and political systems shape how quickly each side moves. The piece argues that China emphasizes embodied intelligence and rapid deployment, sometimes at the expense of individual liberty, while Western debates center on frontier models and regulatory leverage; together, both powers seem to be reading different maps toward a familiar future.