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Andy Konwinski, co-founder of Databricks, has warned that the U.S. is quickly losing its lead in artificial intelligence (AI) research to China. Speaking at the Cerebral Valley AI Summit, Konwinski described the change as an “existential” threat to democracy and innovation.  Konwinski argued that the open scientific interaction that formerly drove significant advancements has been stifled by America’s top AI labs, which have become overly tight and insular. He further argued that until American labs give up their proprietary fortress mentality, the U.S. will continue to lose its primacy in AI research to China. U.S. openness declines as China advances AI According to the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the majority of Americans believe that American leadership in AI technologies is so firmly established that it cannot be challenged. Belfer Center claimed that many in the American national security community insist that in the AI arena, China can never be more than a “near-peer competitor.” However, the Belfer Center argued that China is currently the U.S.’s full-spectrum peer rival in terms of economic and national security applications of AI. Belfer Center added that Beijing is succeeding in its efforts to master AI. Konwinski stated that major AI laboratories, such as OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic, are still producing a significant amount of innovative work, most of which is proprietary rather than open-source. He claimed that tech firms are luring outstanding academic talent by offering multimillion-dollar wages that are far higher than what these professionals can earn in universities. “If you talk to PhD students at Berkeley and Stanford in AI right now, they’ll tell you that they’ve read twice as many interesting AI ideas in the last year that were from Chinese companies than American companies.” –Andy Konwinski, co-founder of Databricks. He commented that tech firms’ ideas must be…

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Filed under: News - @ November 15, 2025 10:18 am