The U.S. innovates, China iterates. That aphorism—or its less flattering version, “China imitates”—dominates many conversations about the relative strengths of the world’s largest and second-largest economies. The U.S., the narrative goes, sits on the technological frontier, creating groundbreaking products and services that chart the course of the world economy. China takes those ideas and builds on them, spitting out cheaper—and perhaps inferior—versions.
In AI, that cliché seemed for years to be based in fact, as Chinese companies struggled to keep up with free-spending, talent-rich U.S. tech giants. But this January, a Chinese startup undercut that narrative.
