In July, the Trump administration released an “action plan” for AI. The introduction to the action plan states, “The United States is in a race to achieve global dominance in artificial intelligence. Whoever has the largest AI ecosystem will set global AI standards and reap broad economic and military benefits. Just like we won the space race, it is imperative that the United States and its allies win this race. … America’s AI Action Plan has three pillars: innovation, infrastructure, and international diplomacy and security. The United States needs to innovate faster and more comprehensively than our competitors in the development and distribution of new AI technology across every field, and dismantle unnecessary regulatory barriers that hinder the private sector in doing so.”

Although the action plan refers to this competition as a race against competitors, its reference to “allies” highlights that the Trump administration sees the future of AI as an “us against them” scenario, with “them” being led by China. Futurist Mark van Rijmenam calls this new environment a “Tech Cold War.” He explains, “While Trump strips AI regulations, China's Premier Li Qiang drops a geopolitical bombshell: a new global AI cooperation organization. The camps are forming. Pick your side.”[1]

The American Camp

Not surprisingly, the allied camp consists mostly of the same countries that aligned together against the Soviet Union during the original Cold War, with the United States in the lead. Deloitte’s Rachel Lebeaux explains, “Internationally, the plan is intended to position the U.S. as a leader in shaping global AI governance and security. It calls for exporting AI technology to allies, tightening export controls to prevent adversaries from accessing advanced AI capabilities, and plugging loopholes in semiconductor manufacturing regulations. The plan also emphasizes the importance of working across international boundaries to align on AI protection systems and to evaluate the national security risks posed by AI systems, including potential threats to cybersecurity and biosecurity.”[2]

Like van Rijmenam, Ed Van Buren, executive director of Deloitte’s AI Institute for Government, views the AI race as a tech cold war. He told Lebeaux, “The plan’s focus on evaluating and mitigating AI-related national security risks highlights the strategic importance of responsible AI development and deployment. Corporate leaders should recognize that AI is not just a commercial asset but also a matter of national interest, which spotlights the importance of aligning risk management, R&D, and partnership strategies with broader security considerations.”

Hodan Omaar, a senior policy manager at the Center for Data Innovation, welcomes American leadership. She writes, “The Trump administration’s AI Action Plan is a decisive set of solid policies that puts the United States front and center on the global stage, stepping up to sustain U.S. technological innovation, respond to rising geopolitical competition, and translate AI progress into tangible economic and societal gains at home and abroad.”[3] The Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal sees the administration’s AI action plan in much the same light. They write, “Credit the Trump team for trying to keep America’s latest golden goose alive. … The goal is to liberate innovators from burdensome regulation, bulldoze impediments to new data centers, and ‘hyper-scale’ private investment, to borrow an industry buzzword. Competition and investment are already enormous.”[4] The Editorial Board at the Washington Post also agrees. They conclude, “Overall, the president’s plan represents an excellent start. But it is also only a start. There is still a very long race to run, and until it is won, the whole team needs to lock in.”[5]

The Chinese Camp

According to van Rijmenam, the Chinese camp consists of “Belt and Road” countries versus U.S. allies. Others might see the camp consisting of China and the global south. It took less than a week for China to respond to America’s AI action plan. The Guardian reported, “Chinese premier Li Qiang has proposed establishing an organization to foster global cooperation on artificial intelligence, calling on countries to coordinate on the development and security of the fast-evolving technology, days after the US unveiled plans to deregulate the industry. … Li emphasized the need for governance and open-source development. … Li said China would ‘actively promote’ the development of open-source AI, adding Beijing was willing to share advances with other countries, particularly developing ones in the global south.”[6]

Recently, Chinese leaders have tried to position China as the guardian of free trade. They are using a similar “moral high ground” strategy when it comes to advancing artificial intelligence. In his comments to the World AI Conference, Li said, “Overall global AI governance is still fragmented. Countries have great differences particularly in terms of areas such as regulatory concepts, institutional rules. We should strengthen coordination to form a global AI governance framework that has broad consensus as soon as possible.”[7]

Journalist Brenda Goh reports, “China's Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu told a roundtable of representatives from over 30 countries, including Russia, South Africa, Qatar, South Korea and Germany, that China wanted the organization to promote pragmatic cooperation in AI and was considering putting its headquarters in Shanghai. The foreign ministry released online an action plan for global AI governance, inviting governments, international organizations, enterprises and research institutions to work together and promote international exchanges including through a cross-border open source community.”[8]

Concluding Thoughts

George Chen, partner at the Asia Group, says, “The two camps are now being formed. China clearly wants to stick to the multilateral approach while the U.S. wants to build its own camp, very much targeting the rise of China in the field of AI.”[9] Although many countries may be wary about joining either camp, a choice must be made. It won’t be easy. I’m guessing that many countries will see the situation the same way Van Rijmenam does. He sees the choice in dialectic terms: “open-source collaboration versus proprietary dominance” and “global governance versus America First.” Unfortunately, China’s past behavior has made the choice hard. China is well-known for its nefarious activities, including hacking, industrial espionage, and intellectual property theft — all in an effort to keep the Chinese Communist Party in power. Things could have gone very differently. During the Obama administration, Dan Blumenthal, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote, “China was supposed to liberalize after its abandonment of Maoist Communism. For Washington the stakes are high: it made a huge bet on Chinese democratization, assuming that if China was encouraged to enter the international economy it would become capitalist and then democratic. Accordingly, Washington has helped integrate China into the liberal international order. Yet Chinese democracy is nowhere to be found.”[10] That remains the case.

China’s actions continue to undermine its potential for global leadership. It has a long history of confrontation rather than cooperation. As the old saying goes, “Actions speak louder than words.” At the same time, China’s centralized industrial policy has made it an economic and military powerhouse that the world can’t ignore. Jason Hickel, a Professor at the Institute for Environmental Science and Technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and Dylan Sullivan, a lecturer at the School of Social Sciences at Macquarie University, explain, “Beijing has used industrial policy to prioritize technological development in strategic sectors over the past decade, and has achieved remarkable progress. It now has the world’s largest high-speed rail network, manufactures its own commercial aircraft, leads the world on renewable energy technology and electric vehicles, and enjoys advanced medical technology, smartphone technology, microchip production, artificial intelligence, etc. The tech news coming out of China has been dizzying.”[11]

China’s leaders continue to consolidate control domestically, suppress opposition, and strategically leverage economic power, diplomatic engagement, and information control to influence Western countries and reshape the global order. Their desire to lead in the artificial intelligence sector follows this same pattern. Allying with an “America First” regime might be hard to swallow, but trusting stated Chinese intentions is also difficult. Welcome to the Tech Cold War.

Footnotes

[1] Mark van Rijmenam, “China Just Proposed a Global AI Organization. The Tech Cold War Goes Nuclear,” The Digital Speaker, 31 July 2025.

[2] Rachel Lebeaux, “How America’s ‘AI Action Plan’ May Help Shape AI Governance Globally,” The Wall Street Journal, 1 August 2025.

[3] Hodan Omaar, “The AI Action Plan Puts the US Back at the Helm of Global AI Leadership,” Center for Data Innovation, 25 July 2025.

[4] Editorial Board, “Liberation Day for American AI,” The Wall Street Journal, 23 July 2025.

[5] Editorial Board, “Trump is off to a good start with an AI action plan,” The Washington Post, 27 July 2025.

[6] Staff, “China calls for global AI cooperation days after Trump administration unveils low-regulation strategy,” The Guardian, 26 July 2025.

[7] Brenda Goh, “China proposes new global AI cooperation organization,” Reuters, 26 July 2025.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Evelyn Cheng, “China releases AI action plan days after the U.S. as global tech race heats up,” CNBC, 26 July 2025.

[10] Dan Blumenthal, “Why Isn’t China Democratizing? Because It’s Not Really Capitalist,” American Enterprise Institute, 26 April 2011.

[11] Jason Hickel and Dylan Sullivan, “The real reason the West is warmongering against China,” Al Jazeera, 3 August 2025.