US and China are failing the same AI race, only differently

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In late September, construction crews in Ulanqab, on the edge of the Gobi Desert, filed through face-scanning gates to raise another block of AI data centers above fields of…

In late September, construction crews in Ulanqab, on the edge of the Gobi Desert, filed through face-scanning gates to raise another block of AI data centers above fields of sunflowers. Six weeks later, American voters did the opposite. Restrictions on data centers passed in 44 of 45 local referendums where counting was complete.

The contrast writes its own headline: China builds, America argues … Beijing wins. That storyline is tidy, and it is wrong.

Every data center needs three things, namely advanced chips, dependable electricity and permission to operate. Then it needs paying customers. No country has all three in abundance. China is short on chips. America is short on permission. And the Asian countries hosting both are discovering they lack sufficient power and water.

Start with China, which deserves credit for treating power and computing as one project. Its “Eastern data, Western compute” strategy steers investment toward regions with land and energy to spare.

Nearly 90 data centers are planned for Ulanqab alone, some designed to draw most of their electricity straight from wind farms. In the first half of this year, China created enough surplus renewable power to run Mexico for a year. Putting the data center where the electricity already is counts as a real advantage.

Last year, China’s own state planner began surveying a glut of locally backed computing centers, many running at 20% to 30% of capacity, after local governments built them in anticipation of state purchases rather than actual demand.

Beijing’s answer was a national cloud service to sell the idle capacity. But chips remain the harder constraint to China’s AI ambitions. Cheap electricity can offset the cost of running less efficient hardware, but it cannot conjure the hardware.

America’s shortage is the mirror image. Its companies have the chips and the money; by one estimate, four American firms control more AI computing power than all of China combined. What they often lack is a socket.

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