Ask people around the world who is winning the AI race, and a surprising number now answer: China.
In 11 of the 15 countries polled for a new report by the London consultancy Public First, a clear majority said they believe China is now ahead of the United States on AI capability and innovation.
The survey covered more than 18,000 people, and the list of countries that ranked China first included some of America’s closest allies: Canada, Britain and France among them.
A verdict on capability
This is a shift in perception, not a measurement of the technology itself. But perception matters, and it tracks a real narrowing. On the hard benchmarks, the gap between the top US and Chinese models has shrunk to a few percentage points, as Stanford’s AI Index found this year.
