The U.S. wants Asia to use its AI — but China dominates cheaper models

Google's display at APEC Digital Weeks in Chengdu on July 23, 2026 did not focus on Gemini.Evelyn Cheng | CNBCBEIJING — The artificial intelligence race between the U.S. and China is heating up in the world's largest continent: Asia."The American strategy is to stop China from becoming the leading AI supplier for the rest of Asia ... and frankly the whole world," said Gary Dvorchak, managing director at The Blueshirt Group. While China's alternatives are cheaper, he pointed out the U.S. currently offers a more complete solution from chips to AI models.But the U.S. sales challenge was apparent at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation "Digital Weeks" in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu this month. The U.S. left few public traces of its involvement in the event, despite a U.S. official and a U.S. business representative to APEC both highlighting AI in promoting the Chengdu event earlier this year. The subdued U.S. presence comes after Anthropic flip-flopped on its Fable AI model release due to abrupt U.S. policy changes, and new Chinese AI models have recently launched similar capabilities for far less. In contrast, last summer at the first APEC AI meeting in South Korea, Mich...