China

China’s AI industry has drawn increasing media attention as its progress generates excitement and trepidation about a global future fueled by Chinese AI. One dimension of this success is the ability of Chinese actors, such as DeepSeek, to circumvent U.S. restrictions on the export of critical technology. According to Reuters, a U.S. official claimed this week that DeepSeek had evaded export controls to gain access to American AI chips. Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese engineers transported hard drives with hundreds of gigabytes of AI training data in suitcases to Malaysia in order to bypass U.S. restrictions by using American chips outside of China. But the flipside to this story is how U.S. export controls have encouraged the flourishing of China’s domestic AI ecosystem.