The US had decisively won the cold war against the USSR in the last millennium, but it may have another cold war on its hands in the 21st century.
This stark warning comes from Marc Andreessen, a prominent venture capitalist and co-founder of the influential firm Andreessen Horowitz. In a recent interview, Andreessen articulated a future where the United States and China are the two primary contenders in a global race for artificial intelligence supremacy, a rivalry he equates to the ideological and technological standoff of the 20th century. He posits that the world is hurtling towards a future where the dominant AI will be either American or Chinese, with profound implications for societies globally.
Andreessen lays out the stakes of this emerging conflict, suggesting it’s a “two-horse race” with consequences that will permeate every facet of human existence. He explains, “This is shaping up to be the equivalent of what the Cold War was against the Soviet Union in the last century. It is shaping up to be like that.” He asserts that China has clear ambitions to “imprint the world on their ideas of how society should be organized” and intends to “fully proliferate their technology” to achieve this.
Andreessen presents a stark choice for the future global operating system: “The world, 50 years from now, is going to be running on Chinese AI or American AI. Those are your choices… It’s going to run one or the other.”
The battleground for this new cold war, according to Andreessen, will be the very fabric of our daily lives. “AI is going to be the control layer for everything,” he argues. “My view is AI is going to be how you interface with the education system, with the healthcare system, with transportation, with employment, with the government, with law. It’s going to be AI lawyers, AI doctors, AI teachers.”
This pervasiveness of AI is what makes the choice of its origin so critical, Andreessen emphasizes. He poses a pointed question to illustrate his concern: “Do you want your kids to be taught by Chinese AI? They’re really good at teaching you Marxism… and the culture is in the weights. How these things are trained and who they’re trained by really, really deeply matters.”
However, Andreessen acknowledges that the choice is not as simple as a clear preference for American technology for everyone. “This is already an issue in lots of countries ’cause they’re like, number one, they may not want Chinese AI, but number two, do they want, you know, super woke Northern California AI? Right. There’s another open question.” Despite this, he firmly believes that when faced with the core value systems, the choice becomes clear. “If you had a choice between AI with American values versus the Chinese Communist Party values, I mean, for me, it’s just crystal clear where you’d want to go.”
The implications of this AI cold war extend beyond the societal and into the realm of hard power. Andreessen highlights the direct military and national security dimensions of this competition. “Do you wanna live in a world of all CCP controlled robots and drones and airplanes and cars? I mean, is that really what you want?” he asks, painting a picture of a world where physical infrastructure is controlled by a foreign power’s artificial intelligence.
Andreessen’s stark vision of a bipolar AI world is not without merit and is reflected in the strategic maneuvers of both Washington and Beijing. The United States, through initiatives like the CHIPS and Science Act, is investing billions to bolster its domestic semiconductor industry and counter China’s technological advancements. The U.S. has also imposed stringent export controls on advanced AI chips to China, aiming to slow down its progress. In response, China is pouring massive resources into its own AI development and striving for self-sufficiency in critical technologies, a cornerstone of its “Made in China 2025” and subsequent strategic plans. It’s making remarkable progress — apart from DeepSeek, which is currently the best open-source AI model on the planet, China has also created a bevy of AI companies that are have created very competent AI models. This escalating competition is creating a palpable sense of a “technological decoupling,” where two distinct technology ecosystems with differing standards and values emerge. The global race for AI dominance is not just a contest between corporations; it is increasingly a clash of national wills and ideologies, with the potential to reshape the global order for decades to come.