There is a way to understand the AI movement and its evolution that explains much of the way the United States understands the relationship with China in the current Donald Trump administration. This way of understanding AI resonates with some in Silicon Valley. But not all. Regardless, everyone in the Valley believes the most popular thesis in Washington benefits them. So, whether it was out of sincere support or pure sarcasm, everyone got in on the act.
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The idea starts with the belief that artificial general intelligence (AGI) is only a few years away. For the more pessimistic, up to five. Some believe it comes first. IAG, by the definition used by those who think about geopolitics, is an artificial intelligence system capable of performing more superiorly than most humans in information analysis, cyber attacks, and designing chemical and biological weapons. Also in prevention. Intelligence capable of scientific research, software development, logistical design, and robotics are better than most of us. Industrial innovation and financial forecasting. And of course persuasion, propaganda and political manipulation.
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There are enough big people convinced that someone will have this technology in their hands sometime around 2030. Alain Dafoe, who heads Google’s AI initiative, Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger have written a book with this prediction. Geoffrey Hinton, one of the inventors of artificial intelligence, wanders the world desperately warning of the dangers. Historian Yuval Noah Harari also wrote a book explaining how we create a hole into which we will sink. This doesn’t mean they are right. Yann LeCun, another AI father who heads the initiative within Meta, scoffs at the idea that IAG could go down the current path. And like him, there are many more. This is a high-level scientific debate in which there is no consensus.
But enough important people believe IAG is coming, and that has consequences. The point is this: Since December 2022, three years ago, we have collectively watched the race to IAG by the three leading US companies: OpenAI, with GPT; Google with Gemini. And Anthropy with Claude. But we do not see, because this is not clear to everyone, parallel progress by companies, universities and the Chinese state in this fight. But they are there. Then someone releases GPT5, and a couple of months later comes Gemini 3, and Cloud 5 is right there in the lead. It looks like a race in which the horses are with their noses on each other’s necks, evenly matched. When a new model comes along, it does one thing much better than the other. It is no longer possible to say which of the three is better overall. Depends on what.
This rapprochement is considered illusory in the eyes of supporters of a comprehensive Cold War scenario. Because if one of them arrives at IAG two months after the other, it will make a huge difference. After all, everyone who holds an AI in their hands will develop future generations of AI dramatically more quickly. Whoever arrives first will gain an insurmountable distance over all competitors.
For Washington, the debate is not taking place at the corporate level. The Trump White House considers it good for three American companies to fight the battle, because it does not care who wins, as long as it is one of them. The alternative is for someone in China to come forward. Then all power goes to the Chinese. Much of the enormous investment promoted by the US government, the trillions of dollars spent on this matter, is tied to the conviction that this is the way things will take.
Now, this also means this: the Chinese and Americans will, at some point, begin working to prevent the other from advancing. With hackers and spies. Subverting models and large processing farms. In Al-Hadd, large warehouses loaded with model training machines were bombed.
paranoia? maybe. It often looks like this. But for those who assume IAG is close, the logic holds. After all, IAG is complete and utter technology. The technology that will develop all future technologies, advance science, and produce money. Or is it pure imagination that affected important people?