How China’s Covert Bid to Overtake U.S. AI Leadership
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How China’s Covert Bid to Overtake U.S. AI Leadership
In China’s far northwestern Xinjiang region, a barren, remote town is quietly becoming the epicenter of the country’s most ambitious technological pursuit: AI supremacy . As foreign journalists entered Yiwu County to investigate, surveillance began almost immediately. Vehicles followed. Access was revoked. Transparency vanished. This secretive environment is no coincidence—it mirrors the high-stakes battle being waged between the world’s two tech superpowers. The Forbidden Chips—And Their Mysterious Presence At the core of China’s AI buildout is a seemingly impossible claim: more than 115,000 of Nvidia’s most advanced H100 and H200 GPUs are slated for use in Xinjiang and neighboring Qinghai. These chips are explicitly banned from being exported to China due to U.S. national security restrictions. The only way they can be legally sent is with a U.S. government license —a near impossibility. Yet, government planning documents across 39 approved projects boldly list these chips as part of their…