The rollercoaster ride involving Artificial Intelligence (AI) garnered headlines with a half-trillion-dollar announcement by Trump about American dominance, followed by a trillion-dollar correction following an announcement that China had overtaken America in AI development. This marked the latest twists and turns in the 21st-century contest for global technological dominance. On January 22, President Donald Trump announced the $500-billion AI Stargate project to build data centers and double electricity in America to serve them. Just days later, a Chinese startup called DeepSeek revealed its own AI model, equivalent to America’s ChatGPT and produced at a fraction of the cost. Investors panicked, and shares plunged. The innovation shocked Wall Street, embarrassed Silicon Valley and Washington, and hoisted Beijing’s status to the top of the global tech sweepstakes. But the significance was captured best by venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who described it as “one of the most remarkable breakthroughs I’ve ever seen… It’s AI’s Sputnik moment.”

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Illustration: Liu Rui/Global Times

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Reprinted from [email protected] – Diane Francis on America and the World.

The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post. 

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