Chinese AI Developers Say They Can’t Beat America Without Better Chips - WSJ

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/china-ai-race-us-chips-9e74b957 By and Jan. 15, 2026 11:00 pm ET Listen (2 min) SINGAPORE—After a year of gung-ho news about China’s gains in artificial intelligence, some elite Chinese AI researchers are coming to a more pessimistic conclusion. The country’s chances of catching up to the U.S. are slim in the short run, they say, because of a bottleneck in chips. “The truth may be that the gap is actually widening,” Tang Jie, founder of the Chinese AI startup Zhipu, said at a conference last weekend in Beijing. “While we’re doing well in certain areas, we must still acknowledge the challenges and the disparities we face.” One illustration: When the AI chip leader, Nvidia, i

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/china-ai-race-us-chips-9e74b957 By and Jan. 15, 2026 11:00 pm ET Listen (2 min) SINGAPORE—After a year of gung-ho news about China’s gains in artificial intelligence, some elite Chinese AI researchers are coming to a more pessimistic conclusion. The country’s chances of catching up