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Managing Director of Keen Resources, Robert Blohm, says the United States still leads the global artificial intelligence (AI) race despite China’s aggressive investment in AI infrastructure and ambitions to dominate the sector.
Speaking during an interview with ARISE NEWS on Friday, Blohm said the United States still leads in artificial intelligence because China lacks access to advanced semiconductor technology, including cutting-edge chips and lithography systems, which are critical to AI development.
Reacting to the ongoing global artificial intelligence race, Blohm said the United States remains ahead of China due to its continued advantage in advanced semiconductor technology.
“The US still leads AI and comes out ahead so far. China’s ambition is to dominate AI, but they still lack access to the advanced chips and lithography technology they need.”
Blohm said China’s planned DeepSeek data centre represents a significant investment but remains smaller than comparable AI facilities in the United States.
Discussing China’s AI expansion, he said:
“They’re going big but not as big as the US. Their data centre is just one gigawatt, while a typical data centre in the United States is three gigawatts.”
He added that China chose Inner Mongolia for the project because of its abundant coal resources for power generation and its cooler climate, both of which help meet the substantial energy and cooling demands of AI data centres.
Speaking on China’s AI infrastructure, Blohm said:
“China’s AI data centres require much more cooling because they stack lower-quality chips, which generate tremendous amounts of heat.”
Addressing China’s broader AI strategy, Blohm said the country benefits from a “second-mover advantage,” enabling it to replicate existing technologies and manufacture them at a lower cost. However, he noted that significant technological barriers continue to limit China’s ability to match the United States.
“China has second-mover advantage. All they have to do is copy everybody and manufacture it more cheaply.”
Blohm also identified China’s restricted internet connectivity with the rest of the world as a major obstacle to its ambition of becoming a global AI hub.
“If China wants to become the centre for all these data centres, it has to open up its internet interconnection with the rest of the world.”
Speaking on major US technology companies, Blohm said recent earnings demonstrated the sector’s continued strength, highlighting Microsoft’s record one-day market value gain and robust cloud performance while expressing optimism about Apple and Amazon despite some near-term challenges.
“Well, it’s good. What’s not to like? Microsoft posted the biggest one-day market-cap gain in history, and the outlook for US technology remains positive.”
Concluding, Blohm warned that the future of artificial intelligence depends not only on technological progress but also on global stability, arguing that rising geopolitical tensions could threaten the infrastructure required to sustain AI development.
“This technology requires perhaps the highest level of peace the world has ever known, yet geopolitics is moving in the opposite direction.”
Goodness Anunobi
