By Laurie Chen BEIJING, Jan 29 (Reuters) - China plans to launch space‑based artificial intelligence data centres over the next five years, state media reported on Thursday, a challenge to Elon Musk’s plan to deploy SpaceX data centres to the heavens.

While the U.S. chases breakthroughs, China is betting on scale, speed, and real-world adoption—and that may prove decisive in the AI race.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has emphasized the importance of advancing AI in his first formal meeting of 2026 with ministers.

A source in China told Daily NK recently that North Korean trading companies operating in China are shipping in not only shelf-ready products like desktop and laptop computers but also a range of parts—including CPUs (central processing units), CPU coolers, motherboards, RAM, GPUs (graphics cards), and memory cards—since the beginning of the month.

From compute and talent to energy and revenue, six charts show where the U.S. leads China in AI—and why that lead could prove fragile.

While U.S. entrepreneurs waste engineering talent on contradictory compliance regimes, Chinese AI companies operate under a unified national framework.