Google’s show at APEC Digital Weeks in Chengdu on July 23, 2026 didn’t deal with Gemini.
Evelyn Cheng | CNBC
BEIJING — The synthetic intelligence race between the U.S. and China is heating up on the earth’s largest continent: Asia.
“The American technique is to cease China from turning into the main AI provider for the remainder of Asia … and albeit the entire world,” mentioned Gary Dvorchak, managing director at The Blueshirt Group. Whereas China’s alternate options are cheaper, he identified the U.S. at the moment provides a extra full answer from chips to AI fashions.
However the U.S. gross sales problem was obvious on the Asia-Pacific Financial Cooperation “Digital Weeks” within the southwestern Chinese language metropolis of Chengdu this month.
The U.S. left few public traces of its involvement within the occasion, regardless of a U.S. official and a U.S. enterprise consultant to APEC each highlighting AI in selling the Chengdu occasion earlier this yr. The subdued U.S. presence comes after Anthropic flip-flopped on its Fable AI mannequin launch because of abrupt U.S. coverage modifications, and new Chinese language AI fashions have lately launched comparable capabilities for a lot much less.
In distinction, final summer season on the first APEC AI assembly in South Korea, Michael Kratsios, President Donald Trump’s chief science and know-how coverage advisor, highlighted the U.S. AI Motion Plan and the institution of the American AI Exports Program, based on a White Home transcript of his remarks.
Nevertheless, earlier this month Politico cited three former officers in reporting the Commerce Division has to date acquired a less-than-expected 78 functions for the American AI Exports Program.
And on July 24 at an APEC Excessive-level Discussion board on AI organized by China’s cybersecurity regulator, Invoice Guidera, deputy underneath secretary for innovation and engagement on the U.S. Division of Commerce, nonetheless centered on the AI exports program, based on supplies reviewed by CNBC.
He referred to as broadly for Asia-Pacific partnerships, noting consumers can purchase a full U.S. tech stack or simply parts by the exports program. “It’s the good design that exhibits the power, safety and functionality of U.S. AI,” Guidera mentioned.
The Commerce Division’s Worldwide Commerce Administration confirmed in a July 29 social media publish that Guidera spoke in Chengdu. When requested in regards to the Politico report, an ITA spokesperson mentioned the quantity of functions “exceeded our expectations.” The White Home didn’t reply to a CNBC request for remark.
American enterprise showcases have been additionally restricted. Google and Meta have been the one U.S. firms that CNBC famous had cubicles at APEC as of July 23, amongst cubicles for Thailand and China, which have been largely Chengdu-based firms. The 2 U.S. firms respectively emphasised molecular AI system AlphaFold and AI functions for small companies, reasonably than giant language fashions.
Google’s authorities affairs vp, Wilson L. White, solely made passing references to Gemini in a speech on July 24, whereas Tencent Vice President Cai Guangzhong took the stage after White to emphasise rising adoption of its Hunyuan LLM and a cloud mission in Thailand.
Beijing’s AI diplomacy
China is internet hosting APEC this yr, which comes at a essential second of U.S.-China tensions and tech rivalry.
Beijing has doubled down on the chance to emphasise its AI capabilities, that are largely open-source versus largely closed U.S. fashions.
Chinese language President Xi Jinping introduced on the World AI Convention in Shanghai on July 17 that China would offer creating nations with 5,000 alternatives in AI coaching and seminars, whereas creating AI utility cooperation facilities with Southeast Asia and different areas.
Beijing then despatched a high-ranking official, Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing, to advocate for creating tech requirements with different Asia Pacific nations on the minister-level APEC Digital Weeks on July 23. Later that day, the 21 member economies, together with the U.S., agreed to again open-source AI with “sturdy safety.”
“The ‘endorsement’ of open-source fashions with sturdy safety assurance offers China’s open-weight technique higher regional legitimacy, particularly throughout rising Asian economies the place deployment price and technological sovereignty are main issues,” mentioned Wei Solar, principal analyst, synthetic intelligence, Counterpoint Analysis.
Pressured integration
However reasonably than a world divided into spheres of U.S. and Chinese language AI, Solar expects a mixture of the tech, particularly in Asia.
With greater than 1,300 dwelling languages in Southeast Asia alone, simply utilizing a U.S. or Chinese language AI mannequin is not as simple because it seems to be.
Governments in Asia and elsewhere are spending “billions” on AI programs tailor-made to native languages, based on privately funded startup Votee AI. CEO Pak-Solar Ting mentioned he’s working with not less than 5 governments, together with two in Southeast Asia, and that the startup is already making effectively over $10 million in income a yr.
Ting mentioned entities in Southeast Asia have a tendency to make use of Nvidia chips, particularly for AI coaching, however could use different chips for operating fashions. He famous Votee’s open-source mannequin for Cantonese audio system was developed partly utilizing Alibaba’s open-source Qwen mannequin.
AI’s skill to generate financial returns stays essential no matter origin.
“Whereas the U.S. and China are fiercely competing in AI know-how and diplomacy by distinct approaches, they in the end can not totally decouple from each other,” mentioned Yue Su, principal economist on the Economist Intelligence Unit.
She identified the sunshine U.S. presence at APEC wasn’t that stunning given different occasions, akin to a San Francisco AI Summit on July 24.
South Korea’s tech ministry organized the occasion, the place President Lee Jae-myung sought to construct on Korean chip and AI megaprojects by assembly with U.S. frontier AI mannequin leaders Sam Altman of OpenAI, Dario Amodei of Anthropic and Jensen Huang of Nvidia.
—CNBC’s Jenny Lee contributed to this report.
