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Policy<br>2028: Two scenarios for global AI leadership<br>May 14, 2026

We’re releasing a new paper that explains our views on the competition on AI between the US and China.<br>It’s essential that the US and its allies stay ahead of authoritarian governments like the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP. AI will soon become powerful enough to be used to repress citizens at unprecedented scale, and even to alter the balance of power among nations. And since AI is advancing more quickly by the day, we have only a limited period of time to set the conditions of the competition—and determine whether and how those threats materialize. It’s with this in mind that we outline what’s required to ensure America stays ahead.<br>The most important ingredient for developing AI is access to the computer chips on which the models are trained (or “compute”). Since the most capable chips are developed by American companies, the US government currently limits China’s supply by enforcing tight export controls on them. Recent history suggests these controls have been incredibly successful. In fact, AI labs in China have only built models close in intelligence to America’s because of their talent, their knack for exploiting loopholes around these export controls, and their large-scale distillation attacks that illicitly extract the innovations of American companies.<br>In this post, we present two scenarios for what the world might look like in 2028, when we expect transformative AI systems to have arrived.<br>In the first scenario, America has successfully defended its compute advantage. Policymakers have acted to tighten export controls further, disrupt China’s distillation attacks, and further accelerate democracies’ adoption of AI. In this world, democracies set the rules and norms around AI. It’s also in this scenario that we’re most likely to successfully engage with China on safety, which we’re supportive of to the extent this is possible.<br>In the second scenario, America has chosen not to act. Policymakers have not tightened loopholes on the CCP’s access to compute, and AI firms in China have quickly taken advantage—catching up to the frontier and even overtaking America. In this world, AI norms and rules are shaped by authoritarian regimes, and the best models enable automated repression at scale. It will be no solace that this authoritarian triumph has happened on the back of American compute.<br>America and its allies approach AI competition from a position of great strength. The tools for AI dominance have been built by an exceptionally innovative ecosystem of companies in democratic nations. Our past success means that our present task is largely to avoid squandering our advantage: to decide not to make it easier for the CCP to catch up.<br>Two scenarios for the US and China in 2028<br>Summary<br>Democracies, not authoritarian regimes, must lead in AI development and deployment. These countries and political systems can shape the rules and norms that govern these systems.<br>Democracies currently hold a substantial lead in compute, the most important ingredient for developing frontier AI models. That lead exists thanks to American and allied innovation, and to bipartisan US export controls that defend those innovations. But on model intelligence, AI labs in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), under the jurisdiction and control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), are not far behind. We focus on the CCP as it is the regime that is most able to use frontier AI to cement authoritarianism; we do not seek to undermine the interests or ingenuity of the Chinese people. Already, the CCP is using AI to censor speech, repress dissidents, hack governments and corporations across the world, and strengthen the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).<br>AI labs in China have world-class talent. It is compute constraints that limit their ability to keep up. Labs in China have remained close by exploiting loopholes in US export control policies, and by carrying out large-scale distillation attacks that harvest the innovations of US models in order to mimic their capabilities.<br>With the supply of compute expanding rapidly, and with AI being used increasingly to augment the training of new AI models, we’re entering a period of great acceleration in AI capabilities. The “country of geniuses in a data center”—the level of intelligence we associate with transformative AI—may be close at hand. This acceleration makes policy action more urgent. To date, by allowing export control evasions and distillation attacks, we have let the CCP’s AI efforts trail closely up the frontier curve. But if the US and its allies act now to address both issues, it may be possible to lock in a 12-24 month lead in frontier capabilities. A lead that large by 2028 would be enormously advantageous. Such a lead would also augment efforts to engage with AI experts in China on AI safety and governance, which we support. But the window of opportunity to lock in that lead will not necessarily remain...