Op-Ed: For AI Safety, It's Time to Align With China

Washington may be trying to slow China's AI march, but Sebastian Mallaby argues in the New York Times that the race is already a dead heat—and US chip export bans are the wrong battlefield. After a reporting trip through Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou, Mallaby says Chinese firms have sidestepped US controls by renting foreign data-center capacity, stacking older chips, and quickly copying advances from US labs. The result: Chinese models trail American ones by only months, and China may actually be ahead in industrial uses, from mining operations to rail maintenance and even slick self-driving cars.

Mallaby's core claim: since Washington can't realistically block China from building powerful AI, it should pivot from tech denial to tech diplomacy. He calls for an AI equivalent of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty—scrapping chip controls in exchange for a joint US-China strategy designed to keep advanced AI out of the hands of rogue states and terrorists. Chinese executives and scholars he met voiced real concern about AI safety, suggesting the door isn't closed. For the full argument and on-the-ground details, read Mallaby's column in the Times.