Faced with less compute and fewer tokens, Chinese AI labs are tightening the gap with the U.S. by just being more efficient
fortune.com Sep 13, 2026

Faced with less compute and fewer tokens, Chinese AI labs are tightening the gap with the U.S. by just being more efficient

AI-summarised brief · reviewed before publication

U.S. intelligence agencies accused six Chinese AI firms—including DeepSeek and Moonshot—of buying bulk subscriptions to American models and training on the outputs to acquire “capabilities worth billions.” The FBI, NSA, and CISA said the practice began in 2024 and allowed DeepSeek to understate its $5.6 million training cost. China’s foreign affairs ministry dismissed the claims as “groundless,” citing national self‑reliance. Analysts note that Chinese labs have also advanced computational efficiency by refining attention mechanisms, enabling competitive performance with limited GPU resources.

💡 Why It Matters

  • · The allegations expose a covert strategy that could reshape global AI development, while China’s efficiency gains challenge the U.S.
  • · dominance in high‑performance computing.