# Is China catching up in AI?

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/q/is-china-catching-up-in-ai/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

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Question

Of the 5 moments we cut that answer this, 4 say China is close behind and one says China is level or ahead. Nathan Lambert said on a16z Podcast (Oct 14, 2026) that chinese labs match U.S. talent but lack compute, and distillation only partly narrows the gap. Alexandr Wang said on Minus One (Dec 13, 2024) that leading US and Chinese labs have essentially no research gap, though chip access remains a contest.

## Where they stand

- Level or ahead 1
  - Alexandr Wang
- Close behind 4
  - Eric Schmidt
  - Nathan Lambert
  - Marc Andreessen
  - Alexandr Wang

## Close behind 4

1. In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen · Oct 21, 2026 · 3 min
   **[Free Chinese models could win users despite trailing by months](https://realalpha.app/s/free-chinese-models-could-win-users-despite-trailing-by/)**
   > “the vast majority of the world will use the free Chinese models rather than the more expensive Western models.”
   [Eric Schmidt](https://realalpha.app/people/eric-schmidt/) Former CEO, Google [25:37](https://realalpha.app/v/U5YtR3OG5Uo/?t=1537)
2. a16z Podcast · Oct 14, 2026 · 5 min
   **[Why distillation explains less of China's AI progress than assumed](https://realalpha.app/s/why-distillation-explains-less-of-chinas-ai-progress-than/)**
   > “And distillation is a way to effectively spend more money to get what is compute equivalent. Like outputs from a language model are a function of compute.”
   [Nathan Lambert](https://realalpha.app/builders/nathan-lambert/) Founder, Trillium [9:37](https://realalpha.app/v/BKuK0M6oDTI/?t=577)
3. a16z Podcast · Jan 7, 2026 · 4 min
   **[AI model leads may be easier to catch than expected](https://realalpha.app/s/ai-model-leads-may-be-easier-to-catch-than-expected/)**
   > “we are aggressively investing behind every strategy that we've identified that we think has a plausible chance of working”
   [Marc Andreessen](https://realalpha.app/people/marc-andreessen/) Co-founder, a16z [57:52](https://realalpha.app/v/xRh2sVcNXQ8/?t=3472)
4. Lightcone · Jun 18, 2025 · 4 min
   **[Wang sees data and know-how as China’s AI advantages](https://realalpha.app/s/wang-sees-data-and-know-how-as-chinas-ai-advantages/)**
   > “The simplest explanation for me about why the Chinese models are so good is espionage.”
   [Alexandr Wang](https://realalpha.app/builders/alexandr-wang/) Chief AI Officer, Meta; founder, Scale AI [48:07](https://realalpha.app/v/5noIKN8t69U/?t=2887)

## Level or ahead 1

1. Minus One · Dec 13, 2024 · 4 min
   **[Countries will compete to adopt US or Chinese AI stacks](https://realalpha.app/s/countries-will-compete-to-adopt-us-or-chinese-ai-stacks/)**
   > “There's basically no research gap between the leading US labs and the Chinese labs.”
   [Alexandr Wang](https://realalpha.app/builders/alexandr-wang/) Founder & CEO, Scale AI [20:05](https://realalpha.app/v/CEebe451GZs/?t=1205)

Each moment is a few minutes of a long interview, cut by Real Alpha and filed under how it answers by a model that read its claim and quote. Open a moment for its full transcript. Last moment added Oct 26, 2026.