The Great Firewall

China is structurally disadvantaged in the technological race, especially regarding artificial intelligence (AI). So says Dimitri Zabelin, founder and geopolitical strategist at Pantheon Insights.

While about 56% of websites are in English, only 3.6% of websites worldwide are in Chinese. This vastly smaller data pool puts China at a disadvantage, Zabelin explained. 

“China can only mass produce chips that are 7-nanometers and above, which is considered legacy,” he stated. Meanwhile, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, also known as TSMC, is currently developing 2-nanometer chips. “That’s like night and day,” Zabelin said. 

“China also has far more guardrails and parameters about what’s acceptable to use in their [large language models (LLM)] than the U.S.” due to the government’s closed regime to ensure social order and stability.  

Under President Trump’s administration, the United States is expected to remove existing guardrails on AI research, which, according to Zabelin, could put the nation ahead of China and Europe.

During his first full day back in office, President Trump announced a $500 billion AI infrastructure project backed by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank.