US-China AI race in full throttle as both sides strive for dominance

The race for artificial intelligence (AI) dominance -- one of the most important aspects of tech rivalry between the US and China -- is in full throttle with the US making moves to maintain its significance, while China increases its efforts to reign supreme by 2030 with major investments in the field.

The AI Index Report by Stanford University showed that China produces most articles and publications in AI around the world but the US is ahead of China in quality, as the US' number of highly cited publications is 50, while China boasts 34, Germany and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region seven each, and Canada six publications.

The PatentPC website reported that China is by far the leader in global AI patent applications, accounting for 60% of the world in recent years.

China's biggest goal is to become a world leader in AI in 2030, having launched the New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan in July 2017. Beijing aims to have a domestic AI industry worth around $150 billion by 2030.

South China Morning Post reported that Beijing set up a national AI industry fund of $8.2 billion to invest in early-stage AI projects to encourage growth. The Chinese government also provides research and development grants, incentives, and supply contracts to AI firms.

Meanwhile, the US carries out its own projects with both its private sector and state support for AI. The Stargate Project -- a joint venture between OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and MGX -- was announced by US President Donald Trump shortly after he took office in January.

The project marks the largest AI investment plan by the US of up to $500 billion over the next four years to build a new AI infrastructure in the country.

- Most used AI tools originate in US

The AITools website data showed that the US still holds dominance over China in the rankings of the most popular AI tools around the world.

US-based OpenAI's ChatGPT is still the most popular ever since its public release, ranking first with 4.7 billion visitors despite losing monthly site traffic to DeepSeek around its launch.

China's DeepSeek ranks fourth despite its booming success as a free and completely open-source large language model, as well as its services requiring no paid subscription to use its more advanced reasoning model, whose American alternative by ChatGPT is otherwise locked behind a monthly paywall.

In January, DeepSeek's monthly user count rose by 2,000% to 268 million, while ChatGPT saw a 2% decline.

Seven of the top 10 most visited tools on the AITools website's ranking are US-based, while DeepSeek is the only Chinese-made tool that made the cut.