As China and the United States race to expand their artificial intelligence capabilities, economists said the two countries need closer cooperation on global governance and safety standards in order to better manage the potential risks of the technology.

While the US continues to lead in frontier AI research, large-scale models and computing power, economists said that China is rapidly catching up and has developed strengths in integrating AI into manufacturing, consumer services and other parts of the real economy, reflecting different development priorities in the two countries.

"There are two main players in the development of frontier AI — China and the US," economist and Nobel laureate Michael Spence told China Daily. "There's almost no measurable difference between them now in terms of performance. Whatever difference there was, China has caught up."

According to Stanford University's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, US and Chinese AI models have traded places at the top of performance rankings multiple times since early 2025.

As of March, the top US model led by only 2.7 percent, with a marginal gap that fluctuated over the past year while remaining in single digits, according to the institute's 2026 AI Index Report.

"The models of AI innovation pursued by China and the US are actually quite different," said Zhu Min, former deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

"The US focuses on large models, massive computing power and a strong foundational base, aiming for what we call 'artificial superintelligence'. What the US pursues is the development of intelligence itself," he said.

China, according to Zhu, measures AI development by a different yardstick.

"China, in contrast, emphasizes applying AI to the real economy. When assessing whether AI is good or not, China places greater weight on the benefits and convenience it can bring to the real economy and to people's daily lives," he added.

Spence noted that China's systematic approach to deployment gives it an edge that the West currently lacks.

"China has, in my view, in the context of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30), a better set of either plans or intentions to make sure that AI is deployed by and adopted across a wide range of the economy, both in manufacturing and services," Spence said.

"We talk a lot about the diffusion challenge, but we are just talking about it. We are not doing anything," he added.

As both China and the US, along with other economies, are scrambling to scale up their AI capabilities, the risks are increasing too — and not just economic ones.

"AI carries significant uncertainty, including risks related to society, the environment and potential military uses," Zhu warned.

"Therefore, establishing a governance framework and safety 'guardrails' for AI is, I believe, the most critical imperative for China and the US as the two leading players in this field, and it is also what the world expects of them," he added.

"The US tends to favor exogenous governance — building external oversight frameworks for monitoring and compliance," Zhu said. "China emphasizes an endogenous approach, embedding safeguards from the very beginning, even before model deployment, to ensure that AI benefits humanity."

Zhu noted that "both approaches are valid, open to discussion, and could together shape the future of AI governance".

Spence said the US and China "can probably cooperate on certain aspects of regulation, such as not using the technology for highly destructive purposes".

China and the US agreed to launch an intergovernmental dialogue on AI, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun announced at a news conference earlier this month.

Guo said that China and the US need to work together to promote the development and improve the governance of AI to ensure that it will better contribute to the progress of human civilization and the common welfare of the international community.