The tech race is a fight for control of the future. China is winning

The AI race isn’t just about technological progress; it’s a fight for control over the future – who shapes it, who profits, and whose systems define it. Like the space race of the 20th century, the AI race isn’t just about innovation – it’s a contest to prove whose system is better equipped to lead the world.

The battle lines of the AI race are being drawn, and each major player has a strategy. Europe’s model places a bet on ethical development, slow growth, and building citizen trust over time. The United States, fuelled by its start-up culture and venture capital, announced last week it would throw $US500 billion ($802 billion) at OpenAI in a move that signals a belief that massive investments will win out. China, meanwhile, has taken a different tack, restricted by a lack of access to the most advanced chips. Instead of scale, it has doubled down on efficiency, creating leaner models that are competing with the best the West has to offer.

This isn’t just about who can build the smartest algorithm or the most efficient model – it’s about who controls the future by controlling attention. It’s about deciding whose values will underpin the next century of innovation and influence.

Enter DeepSeek, the newest AI project that’s in the running to be the Sputnik moment of the AI development race. Its developers, funded by a Chinese hedge fund, trained a model comparable to ChatGPT’s o1 for a fraction of the cost. Limited by chip restrictions, Chinese developers innovated a process that relied less on brute force and more on precision. Their technological wizardry should be embarrassing to us in the West. The idea that limiting China’s access to our hardware would keep us ahead seems to have failed.

This is about a broader geopolitical strategy. China has long touted its ability to build cities and infrastructure faster and cheaper than the West. Now, they’re applying that same ethos to artificial intelligence. The United States certainly still dominates in some areas – it was only just over two years ago that ChatGPT burst onto the digital scene and changed our lives. But China is proving that efficiency under resource constraints can be just as powerful as throwing billions of venture capital funding at new hardware.

TikTok proves this again. Where American companies used to dominate in social media, TikTok has taken over. Their algorithm is smarter and more capable at shaping economic and political behaviour. Its capacity is so strong and likely to be intricately tied to the Chinese Communist Party that the US has passed a law to ban it outright. American platforms have tried to replicate its success, but they’re falling behind. By making smart plays to control AI in all of its shapes, China’s ability to shape the global information ecosystem to its liking grows stronger.

We’ve seen this story before. The space race wasn’t really about putting a man on the moon or even the military technology to spy on a rival. It was about showing the world whose system – whose economy, innovation, and values – was superior. AI is now playing the same role. And just as the moon landing was a spectacle to prove American dominance, China’s success with AI is a statement: “Our way works better.”

For the West, this moment demands introspection. OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT proved, for a time, the superiority of the American model. But the West now needs to think smarter about how it invests in AI, diversifying its efforts and ensuring that its models reflect democratic values such as transparency and accountability.

The Chinese model is no neutral threat. Their version of these technologies reflects a highly authoritarian view of the world, one in which the internet is censored, and technology should progress even if our daily lives must suffer as a result. We can live in a world where technology doesn’t have to feel so stressful and overbearing, but the Chinese model of efficiency at all costs sacrifices something even more important: the right of anyone to have anything to say about it.

Australia, meanwhile, cannot afford to stand idly by. As a country reliant on robotics and with an urbanised, tech-savvy population, Australia is uniquely positioned to lead in developing ethical and efficient AI frameworks. Yet the nation’s current infrastructure falls short. Australia’s largest supercomputer doesn’t have the power to compete on a global scale, and there’s no cohesive national strategy for AI development.

This isn’t just a call for more funding. It’s about ensuring that Australia has a voice in the fight for the future of technology. Each of the major political parties should have a concrete plan for developing an AI industry over the next decade. In a world where attention is currency, Australians deserve to be more than consumers of someone else’s vision.

The race for AI dominance is a battle for the future of society. Algorithms and large language models are reshaping the way we interact with information, with each other, and with our governments. Whether it’s TikTok shaping attention spans or DeepSeek redefining efficiency, these tools are influencing the foundations of our economies and democracies. The question isn’t whether AI will change the world; it’s who gets to decide how.

Cory Alpert is a PhD researcher at the University of Melbourne looking at the impact of AI on democracy. He previously served the Biden administration for three years.

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