Donald Trump return to China this Wednesday. His first trip to the Asian giant since 2017 will inevitably be marked by the guerra in Irantrade tensions and the sale of arms to Taiwan. However, there will also be room for another front that is causing increasing concern in USA: the dizzying Chinese rise in the development of artificial intelligence (AI).
In 2017, the regime Xi Jinping presented its first national plan to dominate the IA. The Chinese State mobilized all its resources to attract international experts and promote companies specialized in branches of that field. technology like him facial recognitionvital for its citizen surveillance apparatus. Their strategy was disrupted when, at the end of 2022, OpenAI surprised the world with the launch of ChatGPT. USA took the lead in the call Generative AIwhich shapes wizards capable of creating text, images and videos.
Since that ‘Sputnik moment’, Beijing He has put in the batteries. At the beginning of 2025, DeepSeeka then-unknown start-up, published an AI as powerful as the cutting-edge American models and much cheaper to train, quite a technological leap. Currently, this and other Chinese companies such as Like, Xiaomi, Alibaba, ByteDance o D AI compete head to head with OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Meta and other giants of Silicon Valleyaccording to the main rankings. China already presents more patents and scientific research on AI than the US and surpasses its rival in open models.
DeepSeek, the Chinese AI that can unseat ChatGPT / Archive
Business with China
Trump’s position on China is ambivalent. On the one hand, the American president has intensified the trade war against the Asian giant at the blow of duty. On the other hand, he has praised the Chinese autocrat—whom he has described as “a leader of extraordinary stature”—he has managed to get Beijing to accept the sale of TikTok in the US and has opened the door to do business with its main rival.
To do this, Trump will be accompanied by technology magnates such as Elon Muskexecutive director of Teslao Tim Cookof Apple. Both depend on the Asian giant, which has become the main production center for both its electric cars and iPhone. Directors of Meta, Qualcomm, Micron y Coherenttechnology companies in strategic sectors such as semiconductors or computer memory.
“I will ask President Xi, a leader of extraordinary stature, to ‘open’ China so that these brilliant people can deploy all their talent. That will be my first request,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. The Republican Administration wants to take advantage of this week’s bilateral meeting to discuss the creation of a council of investment and a piece of advice trade. It is also considering “establishing a communication channel on issues related to AI,” internal sources tell Reuters.
The threat to the US
Trump’s trip to China has had a last-minute surprise: Jensen Huangexecutive director of Nvidia. Although his name did not appear on the first guest list published by the White House, the boss of the most valuable company in the world boarded Air Force One after a stop in Alaska.
His company, the main manufacturer of chips that give ‘life’ to AI, has been caught in the struggle between both powers. For years, both the Democrat Joe Biden how Trump restricted the sale of graphics cards H200 to try to paralyze China’s technological development. In January, the White House lifted the veto on the export of chips from a previous generation, established the need for a license for future sales and set a 25% commission. However, Republican congressmen and even members of the Trump administration are betting on establishing limits and Beijing has not authorized any purchases.
That clear limitation to trade It initially angered Beijing, but it gave Chinese companies “the spirit, energy and government support to accelerate their development,” Huang lamented last year. “The control of exports was a failure.” Still, China’s national effort to develop its own chip industry is succeeding in reducing its dependence on the US. The technology and scale at which Nvidia operates is unrivaled, but that could change. In April, DeepSeek revealed that, for the first time, its AI models will run on chips from Huawei manufactured by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), both Chinese giants. As alternatives to Silicon Valley gain strength, China will “deprive Washington of a fundamental source of influence” over its direction, highlights The New York Times.
Will Trump choose to tighten or relax controls on chips? Experts point out that the meeting of the American president with Xi Jinping will not solve this source of tension.
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