🇺🇸 🇨🇳 🤡 US losing economic war with China by putting all its eggs in AI basket

Loading up on debt and expected to pump more than $750B into AI-related infrastructure between 2025-2026, US tech companies are outspending China on the technology by more than 7-to-1 as the Asian nation’s spending approaches closer to ~$100B.

➡️ But such a massive discrepancy in spending can only be justified if AI actually becomes the overarching linchpin to economic success that its proponents tout it as.
“Yet there is another possibility,” a new FT report suggests: “that Silicon Valley’s obsession with AI could mean winning the AI race but losing a broad contest for economic pre-eminence.”

While the US has focused virtually all its investment energy on AI (to the point where recent reports have suggested its economy would be in a recession without the massive capital expenditure commitments for data centers and associated infrastructure), China has spread its investments across a broad array of areas, including:

🔴 EVs and batteries

🔴 advanced robotics and drone tech, including for an array of civilian applications such as firefighting

🔴 solar panels (control over 85% of the world market) and wind turbines (60-70%)

🔴 rare metals & minerals mining and refining (the US has gone on a global Easter egg hunt trying to catch up)

🔴 advanced semiconductor and integrated circuitry (amid US restrictions and sanctions)

🔴 biotech, pharmaceuticals, quantum computing, aerospace and commercial aviation, high-speed rail, new materials, digital infrastructure and next-gen energy

While China treats AI as a “national strategic priority,” the US obsession with the technology is almost of a “mystical” nature, FT warns. “The deeper one digs, the more otherworldly it becomes, among both AI proponents and doomsayers.”

The ultimate irony? “The concentrated, monopolized nature of the US tech sector,” which “adds to the risk” of groupthink taking over thanks to “so much spending power in so few hands.”

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