JOHN LAMPARSKI/AFP via Getty Images
- Alibaba’s Joe Tsai says the AI race isn’t winner-takes-all but a “long marathon.”
- Tsai said the US should prioritize adoption over massive spending.
- Instead of spending billions on AI, China focuses on rapid integration in everyday tech.
Alibaba chairman Joe Tsai said AI isn’t a winner-take-all competition.
Tsai said at the All-In Summit 2025 in September, a recording of which was posted on Wednesday, that “when it comes to AI, there’s no such thing as winning the race.”
“It’s a long marathon,” he added.
Tsai said the AI race isn’t about who builds the biggest or most powerful model — it’s about who can deploy AI faster.
“Every week there’s a model that’s leading, but then the next week another model overtakes them,” Tsai said. “My definition of winning, you know, is not who comes up with the strongest AI model, but who can adopt it faster,” he added.
He said the US should focus more on the adoption and diffusion of AI instead of spending billions on developing larger models.
Tsai highlighted China as an example of faster adoption. He said companies are embracing open-source and smaller models that are optimized for real-world use, such as on mobile devices and laptops.
“I’m not saying China technologically is winning in the model war,” Tsai said. “But in terms of the actual application and also people benefiting from AI, it has made a lot of development.”
“You want AI to proliferate,” he added.
Alibaba declined to comment.
US and China AI strategy
US tech companies have been spending billions of dollars to stay ahead in the AI race.
Executives at Meta say they expect to spend $600 billion on AI infrastructure, including massive data centers, through 2028. OpenAI and Oracle have announced plans to put $500 billion into a data center project dubbed Stargate.
Meanwhile, China’s AI play is all about lean, efficient models — cheaper, lighter, easier to deploy.
DeepSeek’s R1 model, which shook up the AI industry and the US stock market earlier this year, rivals top competitors but, according to the company, it was built at a fraction of the cost.
Instead of trying to outbuild leading players like OpenAI, China focuses on rolling out AI across everyday tech at breakneck speed, Ray Wang, the research director for semiconductors and emerging technology at Futurum Group, told Business Insider in April.
That rapid integration could prove just as crucial as model quality in determining a country’s overall competitiveness in AI, Wang said.
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