Sam Altman, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of OpenAI, warned that the United States may be underestimating China's artificial intelligence (AI) technological capabilities. He projected that semiconductor export controls alone would be insufficient to hinder China's AI advancements.
CEO Altman said on the 18th during a press conference that was held in local time, "I'm worried about China," according to CNBC. He warned that the AI competition between the U.S. and China is a critical issue that is entangled beyond simply determining who is ahead.
He stated, "In terms of inference capabilities, China is likely to build up more quickly." He continued, "There are also research aspects and product aspects. Overall, there are many factors," adding, "It's not as simple as determining who is ahead between the U.S. and China."
He emphasized that while the U.S. is tightening semiconductor export controls, these policies are not keeping pace with technological realities. When asked if a reduction in the number of graphics processing units (GPUs) exported to China could provide reassurance, CEO Altman replied, "My intuition is that it won't be effective." He then mentioned semiconductor fabs, which produce chips that power everything from smartphones to large-scale AI systems, saying, "You can control one thing, but that might not be the answer." He added, "They could build fabs or find workarounds," and remarked, "I wish there were an easy solution, but my intuition tells me it's difficult."
Meanwhile, the Donald Trump administration banned the sale of the low-spec AI chip H20, created by Nvidia to circumvent export controls against China, last April but recently lifted this ban. Scott Bessent, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, emphasized that "we will not sell advanced chips to China. H20 is a chip that can be classified as several generations behind advanced chips," stating that there are no national security concerns. It was also confirmed late that Nvidia and AMD agreed to pay the U.S. government 15% of their revenue from sales to China in exchange for export permits.
Meanwhile, CEO Altman acknowledged that China's AI technology has also affected OpenAI. OpenAI, which has long rejected external calls for full open-sourcing, recently released its first two "open weight" AI models, with competition from China's open-source models like DeepSeek being a significant factor in this decision.