The US-China technology competition has escalated beyond trade disputes into something that senior officials in both the Biden and Trump administrations call a "new Cold War" β a systemic rivalry over who will control the foundational technologies that will define the 21st century economy and military balance.
The contest spans semiconductors (where the US has moved to block China's access to advanced chips and chipmaking equipment), artificial intelligence (where both nations are racing to build more capable models and apply them to economic and military advantage), quantum computing, biotech, and space.
The stakes are existential in the economic sense. The technologies in dispute will underpin virtually every sector of the global economy within two decades β manufacturing, finance, healthcare, transportation, energy, communications. The nation that leads in these areas will have structural economic advantages that compound over time.
American national security officials are bluntest about their assessment. "This is the defining competition of our era," CIA Director William Burns told the Senate Intelligence Committee. "China is the first competitor we have faced that has both the intent to challenge the international order and the capability to do so."
