"China is going to win the AI race" — NVIDIA CEO makes his boldest claim yet before backtracking hours later

The current AI race has two countries that are clear frontrunners, and it's anyone's guess as to who will ultimately pass the hypothetical finish line first.

I'm talking, of course, about the US and China, whose leaders and executives have been at odds several times since the AI boom began a few short years ago.

NVIDIA, which is currently the world's most valuable company and recently surpassed the $5 trillion valuation mark, has been caught in the middle of the continental bickering. Now, it seems like NVIDIA's leader is leaning towards a victorious China.

At the Financial Times' Future of AI Summit, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang was quoted as telling the Financial Times (FT) that "China is going to win the AI race."

This comment came "on the sidelines" of the AI summit, according to FT, with Huang adding that Western countries were being harmed by "cynicism" and that "we need more optimism."

Huang added that US states implementing rules regarding AI could result in "50 new regulations," whereas in China, energy subsidies have opened up the tap for AI firms to run models on domestically-produced chips — like those from Huawei — that aren't as energy efficient as NVIDIA's offerings.

Fear that China is quickly catching up to the US in the AI race was fueled by the release of DeepSeek at the beginning of 2025, which surpassed OpenAI's o1 reasoning model at about 3% of the cost.

To date, this is one of the most frank comments from the NVIDIA chief, who has traditionally been very careful not to make waves on either side of the Pacific Ocean.

Was Huang's comment too harsh? Internal workings at NVIDIA seem to suggest as much. Just hours after the FT's report went live, the NVIDIA Newsroom posted on X a follow-up, clarifying Huang's statement.

This clarifying statement, of course, sounds a lot different than what was said at the AI summit.

Huang has indeed mentioned in the past that China is nanoseconds behind the US in the AI race, alluding to the country's work culture, STEM school quality, innovation, and, perhaps most importantly, underregulation as being prime drivers.

The X post from NVIDIA also reiterates that America can only win the AI battle by "racing ahead and winning developers worldwide," which benefits NVIDIA's business as it attempts to sell its specialized AI GPUs to any buyers with enough capital.

Huang's grand vision involves keeping foreign AI firms reliant on US-made hardware. It's working in some regions, but it hasn't been easy amid tensions between the US and China.

The AI race is taking place on a long road full of pitfalls

In July 2025, it was announced via an NVIDIA blog post that Huang had reached an agreement with the Trump administration to once again begin selling its nerfed AI GPUs built specifically for China.

Most thought this deal was good and closed, but in August, another announcement took us off guard. In order to receive the necessary export licenses for AI GPU sales to China, NVIDIA and AMD both agreed to pay the US government 15% of the revenue garnered from those sales.

In September, China fired back by banning some of its top tech companies, including Alibaba and ByteDance, from using NVIDIA's RTX Pro 6000D AI GPU, another neutered chip designed specifically for the Chinese market.

US President Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea last month, and there were hopes that the trade talks would once again allow NVIDIA to sell its hardware in China.

The talks, however, did not break the stalemate, and NVIDIA remains largely locked out of China's market.

FAQ

Follow Windows Central on Google News to keep our latest news, insights, and features at the top of your feeds!