This article only represents the author's own views.

From Silicon Valley boardrooms to Wall Street trading floors to Washington policy circles, a comforting assumption prevails: American AI supremacy is guaranteed by its overwhelming advantages in computing power and proprietary models.

This mindset, reinforced by export controls on advanced chips and billion-dollar investments in closed AI systems, has become conventional wisdom among tech executives, investors and policymakers alike. But recent developments from China, particularly the emergence of DeepSeek, suggest this trilateral consensus may be dangerously misplaced. As someone deeply embedded in China’s AI ecosystem, I see a fundamental shift occurring that challenges core assumptions about how AI leadership will be determined in the coming years.