Reading between the traces of the dueling US and Chinese AI motion plans

Discover key highlights within the Bitcoin house. This article dives into: “Reading between the lines of the dueling US and Chinese AI action plans”.

New Atlanticist

August 7, 2025 • 1:40 pm ET

Reading between the traces of the dueling US and Chinese AI motion plans

By
Atlantic Council specialists

Action speaks louder than phrases—however phrases are a very good place to start out. On July 23, the Trump administration launched ”Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan.” Three days later, China unveiled its “Global AI Governance Action Plan.” Both superpowers are in a contest to amass the perfect expertise and set up the foundations of the highway for artificial intelligence (AI), and their selections may have a serious affect on the worldwide AI ecosystem. To determine what these dueling plans imply for each nations and the broader world, we reached out to our prime tech minds for his or her tackle six burning questions.

1. The US and Chinese plans are each targeted on “AI action,” however are they related?

Though differing in scope and intent, the AI motion plans launched by the United States and China focused the identical international viewers and supplied revealing indicators of how every nation goals to outline international management amid speedy technological change. 

China’s plan, introduced on the World AI Conference in Shanghai, is extra narrowly targeted on worldwide governance, requirements, and norms. Speaking to a world convention on July 26 in Shanghai, Chinese Premier Li Qiang introduced 13 parts of China’s strategy to “multilateral and bilateral cooperation.” While the language espouses collaboration, China’s international strategy is to in the end substitute the present rules-based, multistakeholder worldwide order with another centered on state management, more and more by means of expertise.

The proximity of the bulletins isn’t any coincidence. But the United States and China are removed from the one nations shaping the age of AI.

—Graham Brookie is the Atlantic Council’s vice chairman for expertise packages and technique.

2. How ought to we count on every plan to materialize all over the world?

China and the United States are advancing essentially completely different visions of AI’s function on this planet. For China, AI is geopolitical infrastructure—centralized, sovereign, and aligned with its Belt and Road–model diplomacy. It emphasizes sovereign compute energy, knowledge management, and state-led improvement. The United States, in contrast, sees AI as an financial engine and a pillar of nationwide safety, anchored in open innovation, personal enterprise, and alliances amongst democracies. 

This divide cuts deeper than coverage. China champions state management utilizing the time period “sovereignty,” whereas partaking in multilateral fora and United Nations (UN)–led mechanisms to bend the rules-based worldwide order towards its state management mannequin and steer international AI governance, positioning itself as a voice for the Global South. The United States clings to trade and a market-driven agenda, selling “trusted” governance by means of broad Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) rules and the narrower Group of Seven (G7) partnership—whereas tightening export controls and tech restrictions. While China leverages AI diplomacy by means of infrastructure, coaching, and open-source instruments, the United States doubles down on norms and safeguards. 

This is about extra than simply expertise—it’s a battle between rival digital worldviews. One champions state management and sovereign authority; the opposite bets on openness, markets, and liberal norms. As the Global South navigates between these competing visions, the result will not be a clear cut up—however a fractured panorama is inevitable. The coming decade will hinge on which mannequin proves extra persuasive, extra scalable, and extra aligned with international aspirations.

—Konstantinos Komaitis is a resident senior fellow and international governance and expertise lead on the Atlantic Council’s Democracy and Tech Initiative.

3. How do the competing plans affect the AI tech stack and international infrastructure?

The United States and China are providing starkly contrasting visions for international AI governance. The US plan emphasizes strategic competitors with China and prioritizes sustaining US technological primacy. It advances an bold—and, some would say, aggressive—framework: bolstering enforcement of present chip export controls, pressuring allies to align with US restrictions underneath menace of penalty, and customarily searching for to create dependencies on US expertise merchandise, together with by offering an all-in-one AI tech stack as a part of its international coverage technique. When companions are talked about, it’s with a considerably antagonistic tone—they’re described largely as both potential clients or as obstacles to be introduced into compliance. The plan outlines the necessity to counter China in worldwide governance our bodies—which is an efficient and welcome inclusion—however with a number of State Department businesses going through deep staffing cuts, together with many with deep data of and relationships in these fora, it’s tough to see how the United States will successfully navigate these diplomatically nuanced and complicated processes in a manner that furthers US pursuits. 

This haphazard strategy stands in stark distinction to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) engagement on AI governance. The PRC’s announcement builds on a years-long, multi-pronged, interlocking, and self-referential technique designed to make sure China’s dominance in AI governance. The thirteen-point plan—which emphasizes themes of multilateralism, inclusivity, and deep engagement with Global Majority nations on their phrases—builds on the PRC’s quiet and constant work to construct coalitions of Global Majority nations to vote in its favor within the very UN our bodies talked about within the US AI plan, together with the Global Digital Compact. Crucially, promotion of China’s tech stack is a part of this broader diplomatic engagement technique. For instance, Huawei presents long-standing “AI in a Box” options for governments searching for such applied sciences. These sorts of all-in-one choices are sometimes paired with monetary incentives (for each the Chinese firm and the recipient authorities), in addition to follow-up coaching modules that promote Chinese initiatives and approaches to expertise governance. 

The US AI Action Plan seems to be competing with China on the premise of providing a superior all-in-one AI tech stack. It is encouraging that the United States is lastly recognizing this cornerstone of China’s technique. However, Washington is failing to acknowledge a key supply of China’s success—and one which will in the end decide its personal failure: the mutually reinforcing relationship between expertise and diplomacy, executed in a scientific, nuanced, and constant method. 

—Kenton Thibaut is a senior resident China fellow on the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab).

4. Do the 2 plans permit room for cooperation? 

There’s little question that Washington and Beijing view one another as rivals, together with within the artificial intelligence race. But either side additionally share overlapping pursuits that might—and, at this second of heightened geopolitical tensions, it stays a “could”—supply a path ahead towards cooperation on the inner-workings of this rising expertise the place either side may gain advantage from some type of détente. 

The United States and China each highlighted the necessity for all elements of society to profit from a expertise that may possible seep into each a part of people’ day by day lives within the years to come back. That could also be a small level. But Washington and Beijing each dedicated to creating AI as accessible as doable, together with throughout a number of non-tech-related industries. That’s a dedication which will open the trail for the geopolitical rivals to work on widespread apolitical requirements, as they did in 2023 when signing the voluntary Bletchley Park Declaration round AI security.

Both sides additionally made pledges to enhance the wholesale datasets that underpin the newest massive language fashions. That gained’t contain the United States and China sharing delicate data between one another. But it might doubtlessly supply methods to construct mutually accessible datasets in subjects like public well being and biotechnology in ways in which exist already between the 2 nations.

Washington and China made separate commitments round vitality infrastructure to fast-track AI improvement. Again, these efforts will probably be carried out in silos. But a few of this infrastructure, together with the upgrading of nationwide vitality grids to fulfill the calls for of reams of recent knowledge facilities, might additionally profit from classes realized—and experiences shared—between the 2 geopolitical rivals. 

—Mark Scott is a senior resident fellow on the Democracy and Tech Initiative.

5. How will Global Majority nations work together with these competing plans?

China’s plan portrays AI as a driving power for financial and social improvement. Its assertion on the World AI Conference (WAIC) emphasised how AI might assist to realize the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It is a strategic play, as shared advantages and sustainable improvement are notably essential on China’s engagement with African nations and the broader Global Majority. 

In distinction, the US plan takes a aggressive strategy with the aim of market dominance. While this goal of sustaining technological management could also be official, Global Majority nations might view it as confrontational. These nations might hesitate to extend their technological dependence on a world energy perceived as unwilling to contemplate their improvement wants. 

China’s plan is in keeping with its longstanding international coverage rules, as evidenced in United Nations debates over time. Together with the group of growing nations generally known as the G77, China has maintained that international governance mechanisms ought to prioritize and be extra attentive to the various wants and developmental phases of nations, notably these within the growing world. Its WAIC assertion emphasizing nationwide sovereignty as a elementary side of AI governance aligns with China’s objectives of accelerating state management at each the nationwide and worldwide ranges. 

China’s WAIC assertion additionally proposes exploring a world mechanism for knowledge sharing and selling the “orderly and free flow of data” whereas sustaining safety. Ensuring that knowledge flows are “secure” or “safe” is a typical theme in China’s knowledge coverage, typically indicating a want to maintain knowledge underneath state management. Such provisions might align nicely with the calls for for knowledge governance sovereignty related to nations in Africa or the BRICS group of rising economies. Nonetheless, African and Latin American digital rights organizations are sometimes vital of their nations adopting Chinese-influenced knowledge governance frameworks, since they’re conscious of the dangers of surveillance and digital repression enabled by authorities management of residents’ knowledge. 

Overall, China’s technique might additional strengthen the help of G77 nations for a state-centered international AI governance mannequin, in the end advancing Beijing’s geopolitical pursuits. The United States should handle the wants and wishes of Global Majority nations if it goals to export its AI stack to these nations and outcompete China. 

—Iria Puyosa is a senior analysis fellow on the Democracy and Tech Initiative.

6. What can we count on subsequent from China and the US on worldwide AI governance? 

The speedy proliferation of AI has led to an “adopt or risk obsolescence” mindset, with many governments, Beijing on the forefront, turning to inner balancing methods targeted on bolstering sovereign capability to develop and use AI. China’s plan displays a gradual shift in strategy, as Beijing realizes its personal progress will depend on networked types of energy. 

In distinction, the dominance-based strategy of the White House plan underestimates the worth the United States has traditionally derived from its agenda-setting energy in worldwide governance. This isn’t just the ability to affect what is mentioned in worldwide boards, but additionally what by no means will get to the desk. Meanwhile, Beijing has proposed organising a brand new Shanghai-based World AI Cooperation Organization and cooperative processes for AI improvement and governance underneath the UN’s Pact for the Future and Global Digital Compact. 

Beijing, it seems, is taking a web page from a US playbook it has lengthy criticized. Internet governance observers will keep in mind that by means of the 2000s, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa opposed the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers’s (ICANN’s) function in web governance over issues of US management. It will not be lengthy earlier than China rolls out an ICANN for AI. And the world might react fairly in a different way. 

—Trisha Ray is an affiliate director and resident fellow on the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center. 

Further studying

Related Experts:
Graham Brookie,
Konstantinos Komaitis,
Kenton Thibaut,
Mark Scott,
Iria Puyosa, and
Trisha Ray

Image: US President Donald Trump delivers remarks on artificial intelligence on the “Winning the AI Race” Summit in Washington D.C., U.S., July 23, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura

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