Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind, has shared a new assessment of the global AI race, stating that China is now “only months behind” the United States and the West in the development of frontier artificial intelligence systems, including the pursuit of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).
Speaking at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos on January 15, 2026, Hassabis highlighted China’s extraordinary speed of progress, massive state-backed investment, and growing talent pool as some of the key factors that have dramatically narrowed the gap over the last 12–18 months.
“China is moving incredibly fast. They are now only months behind in some of the key frontier models,” Hassabis said. “Their investment levels are enormous, and they are scaling up talent and compute at an unprecedented rate. We should not underestimate what they are capable of achieving in the next few years.”
Hassabis highlighted that while the United States currently holds a lead in model performance and innovation, largely thanks to companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and xAI, the margin is shrinking rapidly.
China’s aggressive AI push
China has poured billions of dollars into its national AI strategy, including the New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan and massive funding for state-linked tech giants such as Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, and emerging players like DeepSeek and Zhipu AI.
Some of the key drivers of China’s acceleration include:
– Rapid scaling of compute infrastructure, including domestically developed chips and large-scale data centers.
– Massive government subsidies and talent repatriation programs.
– A highly coordinated ecosystem linking academia, industry, and the state.
– Breakthroughs in open-source models (e.g., DeepSeek-V3, Qwen series) that rival or in some benchmarks, surpass Western counterparts.
Hassabis stated that Chinese labs are now releasing frontier-level models at a pace comparable to — or faster than — many Western companies, often with fewer public constraints on data usage and model deployment.
China’s AI lead could revise the global AI landscape
Hassabis also warned that the narrowing gap could have profound geopolitical, economic, and security implications. He stressed the importance of continued investment in AI research, talent development, and computing infrastructure in the West to maintain a competitive edge.
Hassabis also stressed the need for international cooperation on AI safety and governance, stating, “We are entering an era where the capabilities of these systems will be transformative. It’s critical that we develop them responsibly, and that requires global coordination — including with China — on safety standards and risk mitigation.”
Despite the competitive assessment, Hassabis acknowledged the value of Chinese contributions to the global AI community, particularly in open-source advancements and efficiency innovations.