China’s AI Rollout Has No Off Switch
Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy
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While Washington focuses on technological superiority in artificial intelligence, Beijing adopts a fundamentally different strategy centered on deploying AI across its entire economy at scale. This Chinese approach, which cannot be easily halted, presents novel security challenges that diverge from the traditional technological race paradigm.
China’s AI Rollout Has No Kill Switch
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Analysis: China’s AI Rollout Has No Off Switch
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Analysis
China’s AI Rollout Has No Off Switch
Beijing may talk about safety, but its model of AI diffusion is made to go rogue.
!An illustrated portrait of Agathe Demarais
*An illustrated portrait of Agathe Demarais*
*Agathe Demarais*
By **Agathe Demarais**, a columnist at *Foreign Policy* and a senior policy fellow on geoeconomics and technology at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
!A person wearing a dark cap, black t-shirt, and dark pants carrying a red backpack walks past a large indoor advertisement. The wall banner displays large blue and black Chinese text above a lineup of eight white and silver humanoid robots shown side-by-side, each labeled with names and logos underneath. The floor below is polished and reflective.
*A person wearing a dark cap, black t-shirt, and dark pants carrying a red backpack walks past a large indoor advertisement. The wall banner displays large blue and black Chinese text above a lineup of eight white and silver humanoid robots shown side-by-side, each labeled with names and logos underneath. The floor below is polished and reflective.*
A pedestrian walks past an advertisement at Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport in Shenzhen, China on May 16. Cheng Xin/Getty Images
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October 7, 2026, 7:20 AM
In 1957, Washington went all-in on the development and production of intercontinental nuclear missiles for fear that Moscow was pulling ahead in the arms race. Using estimates of what Soviet factories could produce, the U.S. Air Force projected that the Soviet Union was on track to possess 500 intercontinental missiles by 1960—hundreds more than the United States planned to deploy.
Decades later, Washington’s approach to the race in artificial intelligence rests on a similar logic: If U.S. labs do not double down, China will pull ahead and be the first to reach the holy grail of artificial general intelligence—that is, cognitive abilities that match or go beyond human abilities. Maybe. In the 1950s, the U.S. count of Soviet missiles ended up being wrong. This time, Washington could be measuring the wrong thing altogether with its focus on technological benchmarks. Beijing instead measures the success of its AI rollout in terms of adoption and diffusion across its economy and beyond. This has a key safety implication: Beijing’s version of the AI rollout has no off switch.
In 1957, Washington went all-in on the development and production of intercontinental nuclear missiles for fear that Moscow was pulling ahead in the arms race. Using estimates of what Soviet factories could produce, the U.S. Air Force projected that the Soviet Union was on track to possess 500 intercontinental missiles by 1960—hundreds more than the United States planned to deploy.
Decades later, Washington’s approach to the race in artificial intelligence rests on a similar logic: If U.S. labs do not double down, China will pull ahead and be the first to reach the holy grail of artificial general intelligence—that is, cognitive abilities that match or go beyond human abilities. Maybe. In the 1950s, the U.S. count of Soviet missiles ended up being wrong. This time, Washington could be measuring the wrong thing altogether with its focus on technological benchmarks. Beijing instead measures the success of its AI rollout in terms of adoption and diffusion across its economy and beyond. This has a key safety implication: Beijing’s version of the AI rollout has no off switch.
Today, China lags behind in frontier AI but not by much. Since 2023, all frontier models have been American, but the best Chinese models, such as Kimi K3, Qwen 3.8 Max, and GLM-5.3, are just a few months behind the leading U.S. ones, according to Epoch AI. For U.S. labs, that is fuel to advance faster. The idea that the United States is still ahead rests on a single premise—that the decisive battleground for AI is the frontier. China, however, may well be running another race.
Whereas the U.S. AI ecosystem fixates on top-notch models, Beijing likes to see AI a bit like the internet: a technology to embed in the economy and means to an end. In August 2025, China released its “AI Plus” action plan, borrowing its name from the 2015 “Internet Plus” plan. This blueprint makes for an enlightening read. While Washington focuses on the supply side—chips, data centers, and frontier models—Beijing treats AI as a tool to achieve broader long-term objectives, such as boosting manufacturing productivity, tackling a dire demographic outlook, supporting innovation, and fostering the diffusion of Chinese technology standards abroad. The plan targets a “penetration rate”—whatever that means—of 70 percent for AI agents and smart devices by 2027 and 90 percent by 2030.
At home, China’s AI plan rests on three pillars. The first is collecting industrial data. In 2020, Beijing formally designated data as a factor of production in a bid to make the most of the data points that Chinese factories, logistics networks, and smart cities generate. China’s bet is simple: Crunching all of this data with AI at scale—using small-scale, specialized models that operate far from the frontier—will boost production, further cementing China’s standing as the world’s top manufac
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Analysis: China’s AI Rollout Has No Off Switch
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Analysis
China’s AI Rollout Has No Off Switch
Beijing may talk about safety, but its model of AI diffusion is made to go rogue.
!An illustrated portrait of Agathe Demarais
*An illustrated portrait of Agathe Demarais*
*Agathe Demarais*
By **Agathe Demarais**, a columnist at *Foreign Policy* and a senior policy fellow on geoeconomics and technology at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
!A person wearing a dark cap, black t-shirt, and dark pants carrying a red backpack walks past a large indoor advertisement. The wall banner displays large blue and black Chinese text above a lineup of eight white and silver humanoid robots shown side-by-side, each labeled with names and logos underneath. The floor below is polished and reflective.
*A person wearing a dark cap, black t-shirt, and dark pants carrying a red backpack walks past a large indoor advertisement. The wall banner displays large blue and black Chinese text above a lineup of eight white and silver humanoid robots shown side-by-side, each labeled with names and logos underneath. The floor below is polished and reflective.*
A pedestrian walks past an advertisement at Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport in Shenzhen, China on May 16. Cheng Xin/Getty Images
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October 7, 2026, 7:20 AM
In 1957, Washington went all-in on the development and production of intercontinental nuclear missiles for fear that Moscow was pulling ahead in the arms race. Using estimates of what Soviet factories could produce, the U.S. Air Force projected that the Soviet Union was on track to possess 500 intercontinental missiles by 1960—hundreds more than the United States planned to deploy.
Decades later, Washington’s approach to the race in artificial intelligence rests on a similar logic: If U.S. labs do not double down, China will pull ahead and be the first to reach the holy grail of artificial general intelligence—that is, cognitive abilities that match or go beyond human abilities. Maybe. In the 1950s, the U.S. count of Soviet missiles ended up being wrong. This time, Washington could be measuring the wrong thing altogether with its focus on technological benchmarks. Beijing instead measures the success of its AI rollout in terms of adoption and diffusion across its economy and beyond. This has a key safety implication: Beijing’s version of the AI rollout has no off switch.
In 1957, Washington went all-in on the development and production of intercontinental nuclear missiles for fear that Moscow was pulling ahead in the arms race. Using estimates of what Soviet factories could produce, the U.S. Air Force projected that the Soviet Union was on track to possess 500 intercontinental missiles by 1960—hundreds more than the United States planned to deploy.
Decades later, Washington’s approach to the race in artificial intelligence rests on a similar logic: If U.S. labs do not double down, China will pull ahead and be the first to reach the holy grail of artificial general intelligence—that is, cognitive abilities that match or go beyond human abilities. Maybe. In the 1950s, the U.S. count of Soviet missiles ended up being wrong. This time, Washington could be measuring the wrong thing altogether with its focus on technological benchmarks. Beijing instead measures the success of its AI rollout in terms of adoption and diffusion across its economy and beyond. This has a key safety implication: Beijing’s version of the AI rollout has no off switch.
Today, China lags behind in frontier AI but not by much. Since 2023, all frontier models have been American, but the best Chinese models, such as Kimi K3, Qwen 3.8 Max, and GLM-5.3, are just a few months behind the leading U.S. ones, according to Epoch AI. For U.S. labs, that is fuel to advance faster. The idea that the United States is still ahead rests on a single premise—that the decisive battleground for AI is the frontier. China, however, may well be running another race.
Whereas the U.S. AI ecosystem fixates on top-notch models, Beijing likes to see AI a bit like the internet: a technology to embed in the economy and means to an end. In August 2025, China released its “AI Plus” action plan, borrowing its name from the 2015 “Internet Plus” plan. This blueprint makes for an enlightening read. While Washington focuses on the supply side—chips, data centers, and frontier models—Beijing treats AI as a tool to achieve broader long-term objectives, such as boosting manufacturing productivity, tackling a dire demographic outlook, supporting innovation, and fostering the diffusion of Chinese technology standards abroad. The plan targets a “penetration rate”—whatever that means—of 70 percent for AI agents and smart devices by 2027 and 90 percent by 2030.
At home, China’s AI plan rests on three pillars. The first is collecting industrial data. In 2020, Beijing formally designated data as a factor of production in a bid to make the most of the data points that Chinese factories, logistics networks, and smart cities generate. China’s bet is simple: Crunching all of this data with AI at scale—using small-scale, specialized models that operate far from the frontier—will boost production, further cementing China’s standing as the world’s top manufac
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Source: Foreign Policy
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