In the second half of the 20th Century, it was the race to develop nuclear arms that occupied some of the finest minds in the US and the Soviet Union. Now the US finds itself in a different kind of race with a different adversary: China. The aim is to dominate technology; specifically Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Axar.az reports that an article published by BBC states that the competition is unfolding in research labs, on university campuses, and within cutting-edge start-ups—closely watched by leaders of some of the world’s richest companies and top levels of government. The race is estimated to cost trillions of U.S. dollars.

And each side has its strengths - something Nick Wright, who works on cognitive neuroscience at University College London (UCL), neatly sums up as the battle between "brains" and "bodies". The US has traditionally led on so-called AI brains: the world of chatbots, microchips, and large language models (LLMs). China has been superior on AI "bodies": robots (and in particular, "humanoid" robots that look eerily like people).

But now, with both sides anxious not to let their rival dominate, those advantages might not remain forever - and the race may yet be transformed further in the coming years.

The battle for LLM dominance

On 30 November 2022, the California-based tech firm, OpenAI, launched its new chatbot. In a six-sentence statement, the company announced they had trained a new model "which interacts in a conversational way".

It was called ChatGPT. Immediately, the tech world was dazzled.

It was the birth of the first mainstream large language model, or LLM. An LLM analyses vast quantities of text and data that already exists on the internet, and uses it to learn patterns in how ideas are expressed.

And now, experts broadly agree that when it comes to so-called AI "brains", the US has the upper hand.

How the Americans played their chips

But minds in Washington are focused on another question, too: how will all this affect the US's race with China for global primacy?

According to a senior US official who has spoken to the BBC, the key to America's strategic advantage lies less in the remarkable algorithmic coding, and more in the hardware driving the immense computing power: in particular, microchips.

Put simply, most of the world's high-end, powerful computer chips - the ones used by Silicon Valley firms to fuel the creation of LLMs - are controlled by America. And Washington uses a strict network of export controls to prevent China from getting its hands on those powerful chips. The policy broadly dates to the 1950s, when the US blocked exports of advanced electronics to Soviet-allied countries. But it was sharply strengthened in 2022, by President Joe Biden, as the AI race heated up.

So why don't Chinese factories just start making those powerful chips themselves? It's not so easy. To make the high-end chips, you need an ultraviolet printing machine. Only one company in the world makes those machines - ASML, based in a small town in the Netherlands. America uses the same tactic (its "foreign product direct rule") to block that Dutch company from sending those useful machines to China.

This protectionist policy looked to have been largely successful at helping the US retain its edge when it comes to AI "brains".

But now, China has fought back.

The DeepSeek counter-attack

In January 2025, in the same week Donald Trump was inaugurated for the second time, surrounded by billionaire tech bros, China launched its own AI-powered chatbot: DeepSeek.

For a user, it feels broadly similar to ChatGPT. It can answer questions, write code and it's free to use.

Crucially, DeepSeek is estimated to have cost a fraction of the amount it took to create American LLMs like ChatGPT and Claude."It was hugely discombobulating for Washington," says Karen Hao, an AI journalist. She thinks the US policy of export controls might have backfired: Chinese developers had to make do without the powerful chips, forcing them to be creative. "It ended up… accelerat[ing] China's self-reliance," she says.

As a result, the race for AI "brains" is no longer so clear cut. America thought that LLMs were a powerful tool in its arsenal; now, China can make them too.

China's advantage in the robot wars

And when it comes to AI "bodies" - the world of drones and robotics - China has historically had the edge.

International visitors to Shenzhen or Shanghai are often surprised by the deep integration of robots into everyday life, says Xu; things like drone deliveries to order food.

China has particularly excelled in so-called "humanoid" robots: machines broadly designed to look and act like people.

Not only is China building robots to serve its own, huge population - it also now accounts for 90% of all humanoid robot exports.

The ghost in the machine

But there's a catch.

China leads the world on building robot bodies. But each of those bodies still needs a brain - an operating system, or software, that tells the various bits of metal what to do.

For a robot to carry out lots of varied, complex tasks, it needs an intelligent brain powered by a different form of AI, called agentic AI. This is an AI programme that behaves more like an independent actor, working through assignments containing multiple steps.

So when it comes to those high-powered brains, America still has the edge.

Who will triumph?

It's hard to forecast who will win the race when we don't know where the finish line is, says Greg Slabaugh, professor of computer vision and AI at Queen Mary University of London.

"'Victory' is unlikely to be a singular moment, like landing on the Moon," he adds. "Instead, what matters is sustained advantage: who leads in capability, who embeds AI most effectively across their economy, and who sets global standards."

With technologies like electricity and computing, Prof Slabaugh says, it mattered less who built the systems first, and more who rolled them out most effectively across the economy: "The same may prove true for AI."