China is mobilizing government, industry, and infrastructure behind AI leadership. America risks falling behind without a similarly coordinated national strategy.

When President Donald Trump meets Chinese President Xi Jinping on September 24, the most consequential issue on the agenda won’t be tariffs or trade. It will be artificial intelligence (AI).

Throughout history, nations that led in the industries of the future—from steel to aviation to the internet—built stronger economies, stronger militaries, and greater global influence. AI is the next chapter. In our combined 60 years assessing threats to America’s national security and advising presidents, we’ve learned an enduring lesson: when Beijing identifies a strategic priority, it mobilizes the entire nation behind it to become the global leader. AI is now that priority for China.

China’s Diplomatic and Domestic Push for AI Leadership

Consider the past two weeks. Twenty-nine nations signed an agreement establishing the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO), headquartered in Shanghai. The next day, President Xi Jinping became the first Chinese leader to personally open Shanghai’s World AI Conference, where he announced the new body and pledged 5,000 AI training slots for developing countries. This November, he will host the 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation economies (nearly half the world’s economic output) in Shenzhen, where AI is on the agenda.

At first glance, WAICO sounds constructive. Cooperation among major powers is often desirable. But this is about more than cooperation. It is about which country writes the rules and whose technology gets embedded in the world’s digital infrastructure for decades to come.

Every international institution reflects the priorities of the country that shapes it. America’s postwar institutions largely reflected openness, free markets and democratic values. A global AI body led by Beijing will favor standards aligned with the Chinese Communist Party, whose own use of AI includes censorship, mass surveillance and political control. President Trump should welcome cooperation where our interests align, but he should not endorse any institution or agenda built to prioritize Beijing’s designs for the AI age.

China’s diplomatic campaign follows an extraordinary domestic mobilization. China’s AI+ initiative aligns ministries, provinces, universities, state-owned banks and thousands of companies behind a single AI strategy. The results are already visible.

• Energy: Beijing is the world’s energy superpower, treating it as an advantage to be built, not a problem to be managed. Last year China added 430 gigawatts of wind and solar alone, eight times more than the United States added, in new utility-scale capacity from every source combined.
• AI Models: China has also shrunk our lead in AI models themselves, reaching rough parity today after trailing badly just three years ago. Its open-source models have been downloaded more than 10 billion times. On OpenRouter, where developers choose what to run, Chinese models now account for more tokens than American ones, in part because they cost far less.
• Chips: Previous export controls bought America time, not victory. While the United States maintains an advantage, China is working to reduce its dependency on the US chip market. Chinese companies captured 41 percent of their own AI chip market last year, and one leading Chinese model has already been trained entirely on Chinese-made chips.

America has everything it needs to win except the same sense of national purpose. Rather than accelerating the build-out of America’s AI infrastructure, states have introduced 1,800 AI-related bills this year alone, and 172 local restrictions or moratoriums on data centers remain active in 42 states. Communities asking about electricity costs and water use deserve real answers, and industry should provide them. But while China builds a national strategy, America litigates our AI leadership one permit, one lawsuit, and one ordinance at a time.

How the US Needs to Respond to China’s Efforts to Lead in AI

There is further reason for caution in the upcoming summit. The agenda reportedly includes shared AI standards. But we have seen this movie before. The 2015 cyber agreement generated headlines and changed nothing. Today, Chinese cyber operators sit inside American critical infrastructure, and this year’s Annual Threat Assessment names China among the most persistent and active cyber threats we face. That same assessment concludes China is the most capable competitor in AI and aims to displace the United States as the global leader by 2030.

So, President Trump should arrive with three objectives: 

1. Do not endorse an international AI governance body designed and led by Beijing. 
2. Do not remove the threat of export controls for promises no one can check. 
3. Make it clear that America intends to compete by building rapidly.

The Trump administration should also push for Congress to codify the White House’s “American AI Action Plan” into law and accelerate permitting reform legislation. States should expand power, modernize the grid, and train workers. Industry should vigorously compete and carry the costs its growth creates. And schools, unions and employers must produce the electricians, pipefitters and technicians who will build the infrastructure necessary to maintain US leadership.

The question the summit must answer is not whether the two sides can talk about AI—they clearly can. The harder question is whether the United States leverages the visit to advance a strategy for global AI leadership that matches the urgency of the one Beijing has been running for years. 

About the Authors: Frances Fragos Townsend and Michael Morell 

Frances F. Townsend is a former Homeland Security Advisor to President George W. Bush and longtime Justice Department official. She has held senior corporate roles at Activision Blizzard and MacAndrews & Forbes, and serves on multiple public, private, and nonprofit boards. Townsend is also a former national security analyst for CBS and CNN. She also serves as National Security Advisor to the American Edge Project.

Michael J. Morell is the former Acting and Deputy Director of the CIA, with a 33-year career in intelligence. He played key roles in counterterrorism and major national security operations, including the Osama Bin Laden raid. He now advises private sector firms and serves on multiple boards. He also serves as National Security Advisor to the American Edge Project.

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