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Can AI fears overcome US-China race dynamics and force a slowdown?

US and Chinese AI leaders are calling for a slowdown in AI development, citing fears of existential risks. But can this happen when the two countries are locked in a high-stakes tech race?

By 4 min readRead the original reporting
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scmp.com
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scmp.comhttps://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-war/article/3368503/pacing-problem-can-ai-fears-overcome-us-china-race-dynamics-and-force-slowdown
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Reporting by a news outlet — not a first-party document.

What we could not confirm independently: This claim is attributed to the named outlet. We did not verify it against a first-party document. (scmp.com)

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What happened

US and Chinese AI leaders are proposing a slowdown in AI development due to fears of existential risks. However, the two countries are locked in a high-stakes tech race, making it unlikely that a slowdown will happen soon. US companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic are investing heavily in AI infrastructure, and China is catching up quickly. The US wants to maintain its pace over fears of China fully catching up.

US and Chinese AI leaders are proposing a slowdown in AI development due to fears of existential risks.

The two countries are locked in a high-stakes tech race, making it unlikely that a slowdown will happen soon.

US companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic are investing heavily in AI infrastructure, and China is catching up quickly.

The US wants to maintain its pace over fears of China fully catching up.

Source details: scmp.com ↗

Why it matters

The development of AI poses significant risks to humanity, and a slowdown could be beneficial. However, the current dynamics between the US and China make it difficult to achieve a slowdown. The two countries need to work together to address the risks associated with AI development.

The development of AI poses significant risks to humanity, and a slowdown could be beneficial.

However, the current dynamics between the US and China make it difficult to achieve a slowdown.

The two countries need to work together to address the risks associated with AI development.

Interactive Mechanism

Interactive Mechanism: How It Actually Works

Explore the underlying technology behind this development interactively.

Thinking Budget (Test-Time Tokens):1,024 tokens
Complex Accuracy79%Math & Code Logic
Latency3.2sTime to first full output
Inference Cost$0.0092Per query estimated
Reasoning StyleStep VerificationInternal chain depth
Active Thinking Trace:
1Deconstruct user problem into formal constraints
2Propose candidate hypotheses & step-by-step calculation
3Self-correction: Backtrack and refute subtle edge cases
4Exhaustive consistency check & final output synthesis
Core takeaway: Test-time compute fundamentally changes AI economics. Instead of only scaling during pre-training, giving reasoning models more tokens at inference time allows them to systematically solve PhD-level STEM problems.
Interactive Concept Check+10 Points
Future of AI Quiz

What did neural scaling law research (e.g. Kaplan et al., 2020) observe?

What to watch next

The upcoming summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will be crucial in determining the future of AI development. The two leaders need to work together to address the risks associated with AI development and find a way to slow down the pace of development.

The upcoming summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will be crucial in determining the future of AI development.

The two leaders need to work together to address the risks associated with AI development and find a way to slow down the pace of development.

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