Global poll shows China leads in AI capability as world opinion shifts against US dominance

Consensus Grows That China Is Crushing the United States at AI

Can't-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech The so-called "AI race" is a tale of two polar extremes. On one end is the Silicon Valley model, where powerful, resource-heavy AI development wreaks havoc on the population, driven by what is arguably the most powerful corporate power consolidation to ever exist. Across the Pacific it's another story, where intense competition and people-centric AI regulation mean that today's top performer could be tomorrow's bottom-feeder. Given that the two strategies are chasing vastly different outcomes, it can be difficult to tell whether the US or China is pulling ahead at any given moment. One clue that just might offer a clearer picture than benchmark scores or patent filings: what the rest of the world actually thinks. According to a new global poll conducted by the UK firm Public First and flagged by Politico, respondents in 11 out of 15 countries surveyed now believe China has surpassed the US in AI capability and innovation -- leaving just respondents in Japan, India, Vietnam, and the US itself on the side of Uncle Sam. Even within the United States, sentiments aren't looking good. According to the poll, just 51 percent of US citizens see their own country as dominating the AI race. That doesn't necessarily mean they think China's ahead -- 24 percent of US residents responded that "China is leading" while 25 percent went with "don't know" -- but the fact that nearly half of all US respondents were down on their own country's AI capabilities is telling. More telling, perhaps, are opinions from the US' neighbors. In Mexico, just 36 percent of respondents think the US is ahead, while 49 percent say China holds the lead. Canadian opinion is an outright bloodbath: 27 percent favor their neighbor to the South, while 40 percent think it's the People's Republic. Typical US allies were likewise unimpressed by Silicon Valley, with the opinion in France exactly in tune with that of Canada, and the United Kingdom ringing in at 26 percent for the US, and 44 percent for China. Whether this shift in world opinion reflects growing revulsion at the American model or genuine admiration for China's approach is hard to untangle. What's clear is that if the US tech industry intends to keep doubling down on its extractive, worker-hostile strategy, it faces a serious legitimacy crisis far beyond what any single company can hope to solve. More on China's AI: China Cracking Down on the Types of AI That Are Tearing America Apart

Is China Crushing the US at AI Growth? The World Thinks So, But India Doesn't

What's intruging is that while US allies appear to think China is ahead, respondents from India believes in Uncle Sam's AI prowess The global AI race is taking a rather weird turn whereby a new poll conducted by a British company Public First shows that of the 18,000 responded spread across 15 countries surveyed, a majority of those surveyed in 11 nations seem to think that China has overtaken the United States in AI capabilities and innovation. And here comes the kicker: Respondents who continue to believe in Uncle Sam include respondents from India, Japan and Vietnam as well as the United States itself. "We sought the views of respondents in both advanced (Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Poland, Singapore, the UK and the US) and emerging (Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa and Vietnam) countries, asking them widely on their views on AI," according to the researchers who posted a summary on the Public First website. It goes without saying that the survey is relying heavily on perception rather than facts, given that the US AI models are built on powerful, resource-heavy development driven by circular deals that has seen considerable consolidation of corporate power. Across the pond, the story seems to be based on open-source development, intense competition and people-centric regulations. Back in April, the Cyberspace Administration of China had announced a crackdown on "digital humans" via regulations that would require labelling AI personalities with a ban on programs that could potential harm children or lead to addition. Virtual relationships with AI below age 18 was also going into the restricted list. Now contrast this with what the US is facing. AI deepfakes are rampant as we speak and on multiple occasions India and other countries have risen to pull up some service providers like Elon Musk's xAI while calling on others to remove objectionable material. AI companies are also facing lawsuits from the kith and kin of children and adults who lost their lives via AI. "China is pursuing a different approach to AI. While some Chinese AI companies, such as DeepSeek and Alibaba, also talk about trying to achieve AGI, Chinese policymakers and China's AI industry as a whole are more focused on running several different AI races," says a commentary published by Brookings. The question that one may be prompted to ask is about why India thinks the US is ahead of China? For one, it could be that India hasn't really opened up to Chinese AI opportunities via DeepSeek. Another reason could be a structured reticence to go with Beijing due to their tech associations with American companies that has stood the test of time. However, things are changing fast, as we saw post the recent decision by Trump's White House to cut off all access to Anthropic's Claude Mythos 5 and Fable 5 to all countries. Domestic IT majors have called this out as a hegemonic stance by Washington with industry calling for a more focused policy approach in India towards creating an AI ecosystem that is collaborative and fulfils our sovereignty requirements. Here are some of the articles that we published in recent times around India's policy shift: Coming back to the survey, here are some of the interesting views that the researchers gleaned through the survey: * AI is the most important tech development of our time. On average, 45% of respondents believed that AI will change the world significantly - and 46% that it already had * AI is still largely in our control. Even if the technology never changes from here, around 47% of the potential economic value over the next five years depends on the choices we make - how fast we adopt AI, and how prepared we are to use it in more sensitive areas. * Tasks aren't occupations. For some jobs AI will act as a force for deskilling; for others, it will be purely complementary. * In the West, we are seeing a real AI backlash - but other countries remain highly optimistic. Over the last two years, net valence for AI in the US and UK has fallen by around 75% * It is still early. By calibrating from how much workers in our survey were actually using AI to augment their tasks, we can get a better estimate of how far along we are - we estimate in 2026 we have seen only 8% of the potential economic opportunity. * We are beginning to see some evidence of an AI divide in the sophistication of use of tools. We saw that AI usage is increasingly broad, but often shallow. Workers at larger enterprises were around 1.1 times more likely to be a sophisticated user than at SMBs. * Most people are still uncomfortable sharing sensitive data with AI agents. Just 29% of people said they would be comfortable giving an AI agent access to their bank account. * Younger people worry most that AI is capable of doing their job. When we looked at who was most likely to think this, we saw little correlation with income, sector or our model's estimate of overall likelihood of automatability. * Americans are by far the most negative country when it comes to data centres. Every other advanced economy was clearly net positive on building more data centres, whereas the population in the US was practically evenly split. * There are mixed views about the feasibility of an AI pause. While 56% were in principle in favour of a pause, only around half of those supporters thought one was realistic in practice. What appeared intriguing is that within the US, the sentiments aren't looking good. The poll claims that just 51% of Americans see their country dominating the AI race. And that does not mean that China is ahead as only 24% think this is so with 25% having no clue on this topic. Even more telling was the fact that US neighbours Mexico and Canada believe that it is China that is ahead. While in Mexico just 36% felt the US is ahead compared to 49% who believe China is in the lead while in Canada, this number drops to 27% favouring the US and 40% going with Beijing. The case was similar with US allies like France and the UK that believe China was ahead. Another factor that bubbled up in the survey was the distinct fall in global sentiment towards AI. That the fall is concentrated in Western economies such as US and UK and in some areas among the young is worth noting. Sentiment, however, does remain positive in Asian and emerging markets, at least for the moment. Of course, the survey has no clear indication around why respondents chose what they did. Was it a growing revulsion to the American model of massive centralisation or a genuine admiration for Beijing's approach towards a more open regime.