6 Graphs That Show Where the U.S. Leads China on AI—and Where It Doesn’t

Two important things happened on January 20, 2025. In Washington, D.C., Donald Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States. In Hangzhou, China, a little-known Chinese firm called DeepSeek released R1, an AI model that industry watchers called a “Sputnik moment” for the country’s AI industry.

“Whether we like it or not, we’re suddenly engaged in a fast-paced competition to build and define this groundbreaking technology that will determine so much about the future of civilization,” said Trump later that year...