Anthropic says the US lead is growing. China gives away models that beat Google. Both cannot be true. Inside the contradiction splitting the AI world — and why nobody really knows who is winning.
He humbled Silicon Valley, then vanished. DeepSeek’s Liang Wenfeng hasn’t been seen in 16 months — and just spent $3 billion to ensure no one can take his company from him.
A “spear and shield” quantum computer in Hefei can attack conventional encryption and defend against quantum decryption at the same time. China plans to set the global standard for post-quantum cryptography within three years.
$2.7 billion wasn’t enough to keep him. The man who invented modern AI has left Google for OpenAI — and the timing, against the backdrop of America’s worst AI policy week in years, could not be more revealing.
Same week. Two opposite strategies. America restricted its best AI over suspicion. China gave its best AI away — for free, with no restrictions, beating Google in the process.
One suspected China link. No formal proof. And Anthropic’s most advanced AI models went offline globally. How thin does the evidence need to be to trigger an AI export ban?