SHANGHAI, CHINA - JULY 20 2026: People visit the booth of Kimi, an LLM developed by the Chinese startup Moonshot, during the World AI Conference in Shanghai, China, Monday, July 20, 2026. | Image: LONG WEI/ Feature China/Future Publishing via Getty Images Last week, two Chinese AI companies unveiled models they say can credibly compete with the best systems from OpenAI and Anthropic. The response was swift and predictable.

Markets wobbled , commentators declared Silicon Valley shooketh, and policymakers reached for the familiar language of arms races and wake-up calls. In one headline, The Associated Press said a Chinese model had taken the "US tech industry by surprise." Bloomberg described it as a "surprise breakthrough" that is " roiling markets " and sending global tech stocks tumbling over concerns it could force US firms to rethink their gargantuan spending on data centers, chips, and ot … Read the full story at The Verge.