‘Like selling nuclear weapons’: AI boss’ stark warning over US, China AI actThe CEO of a $350 billion AI company has warned selling US-made AI chips to China is “like selling nuclear weapons to North Korea”.Brielle Burns8 min readFebruary 1, 2026 - 3:02PMThe sale of US-made AI chips to China is “like selling nuclear weapons to North Korea”, a leading AI boss has warned, as the world’s two biggest superpowers continue to battle for supremacy in the multi-trillion-dollar AI race.In a sobering 19,000-word essay, Dario Amodei, the co-founder and CEO of Anthropic, the $350 billion US company behind the Claude chatbot, cautioned against selling chips, chip-making tools, or data centres to the Asian powerhouse.“Chips and chip-making tools are the single greatest bottleneck to powerful AI, and blocking them is a simple but extremely effective measure, perhaps the most important single action we can take,” he wrote in the piece, titled ‘The Adolescence of Technology’.“It makes no sense to sell the CCP the tools with which to build an AI totalitarian state and possibly conquer us militarily.” Have your say in The Great Aussie Debate. Take the survey here: Dario Amodei, chief executive officer of Anthropic. Picture: Valerie Plesch/BloombergThe AI boss warned against the US selling chips to China. Picture: Kirill Kudryavtsev/ AFPMr Amodei rejected the argument that exporting US tech around the globe would allow the nation to win “some general, unspecified economic battle”, arguing it instead gives China a critical leg-up.“In my view, this is like selling nuclear weapons to North Korea and then bragging that the missile casings are made by Boeing and so the US is ‘winning’.”“China is several years behind the US in their ability to produce frontier chips in quantity, and the critical period for building the country of genii in a datacenter is very likely to be within those next several years. There is no reason to give a giant boost to their AI industry during this critical period.”His warning comes amid reports China has this week approved purchases of Nvidia’s H200 artificial-intelligence chip after US President Donald Trump gave the company the green light to sell its second-most-advanced semiconductor to “approved customers” in China in exchange for a 25 per cent fee, earlier this month. Tech companies ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent have been approved to buy over ‌400,000 H200 chips, sources speaking on condition of anonymity told Reuters. “We will protect National Security, create American Jobs, and keep America’s lead in AI,” Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social when announcing the move.A US multinational Nvidia's graphic processing unit (GPU). Picture: Joel Saget / AFP‘Civilisational concerns’ In his essay, Mr Amodei also cautioned that humanity was entering an important stage or “rite of passage” in AI development, which will “test who we are as a species”.“Humanity is about to be handed almost unimaginable power, and it is deeply unclear whether our social, political, and technological systems possess the maturity to wield it,” he wrote.The CEO noted powerful AI “raises civilizational concerns” and could be as little as one to two years away, while also noting it could be “considerably further out”.He defined “powerful AI” as one that was smarter than a Nobel prize winner across the fields of biology, mathematics, engineering and writing, could be given tasks that weeks to complete, and can control robots or laboratory equipment through a computer, possibly even designing them for its own use, among other features. He said if rapid developments in AI continue, “then it cannot possibly be more than a few years before AI is better than humans at essentially everything.”Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Chief Product Officer Mike Krieger and Head of Communications Sasha de Marigny at a press conference in 2025. Picture: Julie Jammot / AFP‘Optimism’: Factor that could see US lose AI race Mr Amodei’s warnings come as Mr Trump’s AI czar, David Sacks, expressed concern that the US could lose the AI race to China, which last year shocked the global tech industry with its DeepSeek Ai model, due to pessimism.Speaking to Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff during the World Economic Forum in Switzerland this month, Mr Sacks recalled a 2025 Stanford survey which found 83 per cent of people in China believe AI is more beneficial than harmful, while only 39 per cent share the belief in the US. “We generally see that in Western countries, the AI optimism is a lot lower, and it’s a lot higher in Asian countries,” he said.David Sacks warned the US could lose the AI race to China. Picture: AP/Markus SchreiberMr Sacks warned against over-regulation born from pessimism, pointing to US Senator Bernie Sanders’ recent call for a nationwide moratorium on the construction of new data centres in the US.“If we have 1,200 different AI laws in the states, you know, clamping down on this innovation, I worry that we could lose the AI race because of a self-inflicted injury,” Mr Sacks said. “I hope that people will become a little bit more optimistic … about this industry as more and more miraculous products come out.”His words echoed those of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who told the Financial Times in November that “China is going to win the AI race”, noting “the West, including the US and UK, is trapped in cynicism”. “We need more optimism,” said Mr Huang.Shahriar Akter, a Professor and Deputy Dean of Research who specialises in the study of advanced analytics and AI at the University of Wollongong, agrees, saying pessimism will “absolutely” hinder the US’s chance in the global competition.“If this negative attitude continues, then it will have an impact on innovation adoption and innovation diffusion,” he told news.com.au. “At the general public level, people tend to adopt technology which is easy to use, which has a lot of advantages, which is not complex, which gives assurance which is responsible, so if that type of positive environment is not created by the US, this optimism will not rise.”Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has also critics the US for being “trapped in cynicism”. Picture: Patrick T. Fallon / AFPHe said China is more optimistic towards AI – a sector which is set to reach $4.8 trillion in 2033 – because of the nation’s positive regulatory environment, incentives for start-ups and the rate of the diffusion.“If we look at the recent Chinese AI policy, they want to make AI available at 90 per cent of activities of public services and commercial services … That is the goal of the Chinese government. “If you look at the diffusion, AI is being deployed at every single level of Chinese public services and Chinese commercial services. If you go into WeChat, if we go into Taobao, if we use the Moonshot, everywhere AI is being deployed and used by general people. And people know they are also covered by a regulatory environment. So, they are not shying away from using it.“It’s a winning situation that has been created by the Chinese government with regard to this AI innovation ecosystem. Whereas if we look at the US environment, it’s a negative environment with opportunities for many different types of lawsuits and that is not conducive.”Dr Akter noted that while Mr Trump’s national AI policy framework, which was announced in December and asserts federal authority over AI development, was a “very generous policy”, it has sparked debate over safety measures and policies at different government levels.“If policies keeps shifting every now and again then, then it would be difficult to bring optimism at the investor level or private firm level or the venture capitalist level.”Negative attitudes towards AI will impact “innovation adoption and innovation diffusion” in the US. Picture: AP/Jose Luis MaganaChina’s government has created a “winning situation” for AI. Picture: Sergey Bobylev / POOL / AFPHe said it’s possible the US can catch up to China’s level of optimism, but it needs to create a standardised regulatory framework both at the federal and state level, pulling together policies “under one single umbrella so that they can give assurance both to consumers as well as companies”.“At the moment, the US has got a ‘hands on’ approach, which means you can do anything until it is banned. But the US needs to come up with explicit rules and regulations … to give confidence to the start-ups (so they understand) ‘No, we are covered. No one can (sue) me against my new innovation. And then start-ups will be encouraged to invest money, and we will see different type of start-ups using artificial intelligence.”Regulations will also increase public confidence that AI can be controlled, and that those misusing it will be brought under law. Dr Akter said the US also need to incentivise starts up through tax brackets, noting China has allowed companies investing in super semiconductor or AI chips to deduct 120 per cent of R&D expenses from their taxable income.“That’s a huge incentive for the growth of incubators.”China’s DeepSeek and the US’ Nvidia logos on screens in Hangzhou, in China. Picture: AFPWho is leading the race?Dr Akter said the AI race differs from the space race or the nuclear race, which captured the world’s attention during the Cold War. “This race is happening at multiple fronts,” he said. “This is not a single finishing line or a single benchmark, and there will not be a single winner because the race has got multiple points.” At present, he said the US is slightly ahead of China in a number of areas, but he predicts that in five years’ time, China will be winning on multiple fronts. Comparing data centres alone, the US dominates global infrastructure, owning about 45 per cent of the world’s data centres, while China has about four per cent, according to Visual Capitalist. As for the production of AI models, the US released 40 major models in 2024, while China released 15 and Europe, only three. The US is also ahead in AI chip infrastructure, with Nvidia leading the charge. But Dr Akter says “Chinese companies are narrowing the lead”.“For example, Huawei’s Ascend 900 chips can work at 76 per cent capacity of Nvidia’s H200 chips. So, they are narrowing the lead very and at a very higher capacity.”China shocked the global tech industry with its DeepSeek Ai model last year. Picture: Leon Neal/GettyChina, meanwhile, is ahead of the US when it comes to AI adoption, AI confidence and AI diffusion as well as the creation of an innovative AI environment. “Most of these Chinese AI companies are very much e-commerce companies that are doing sustainable business,” said Dr Akter. “For example Alibaba has got an e-commerce platform which is called Taobao and it has got 100 million users every month and they are using their Qwen (AI) platform, which is a large language model platform.“These users are basically giving data, and that is contributing to training and developing a new model. Alibaba is making money out of that. But if I look at the US models, for example, OpenAI, it’s a closed system platform, and they are not explicitly making that much money like Alibaba because it is not an e-commerce platform.”Alibaba sign outside the company's office in Beijing. Picture: GREG BAKER / AFP)“And it is basically getting money through subscriptions and recently through advertisements, which are not sustainable for continuing business. So, the Chinese competitors like Alibaba, Moonshot and definitely DeepSeek, they are running on state-funded money. They are getting lot of incentives from the government, tax brackets, free land … that are contributing to develop a robust innovation ecosystem for China.”China is also growing its AI connections with the Middle East, Latin America and Africa, where the most used AI platform is DeepSeek, said Dr Akter.More Coverage‘Civil unrest’: CEO’s scary AI job predictionHannah Wilcox‘Game changer’: Aussies use AI to shopCameron MicallefHe said developing countries are more preferable to China’s open source models, which are free to modify, compared to generally closed US models.“Developing countries cannot subscribe to Open AI’s (paid) subscription … so most of the developing countries’ default choice would be this Chinese open source AI models. “If they deploy it, then China is a clear winner in this race.”Read related topics:ChinaMore related storiesEntertainment‘Final page’: Major festival pulls out of AusA key cultural event that brought entrepreneurs, artists and megastars to Sydney has been cancelled, with organisers issuing a “final thank you”.Read moreCar AdviceLuxury SUV recalled over deadly fearA popular hybrid SUV has been recalled after a potentially deadly manufacturing defect was discovered.Read moreEnvironmentInside doomed climate future Aussies faceAustralia is staring down the barrel of a worsening weather and climate crisis after a bombshell report spelled doom for local economies.Read more