US vs China AI race: What crash changes

The collapse of Chinese AI and chip stocks has altered who can compete, at what speed, and at whose expense in the US-China AI race. Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 model outperformed Anthropic’s Fable 5 and OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 in front-end coding tests. Despite the crash, models like CAISI from the U.S. government placed DeepSeek V4 Pro at eight months behind China. Private capital is not affected by share price fluctuations, as seen with DeepSeek securing $800 billion from firms like CATL and Tencent. The US-China AI race remains competitive, with compute still being a constraint.

Changes in Financing

The crash has hit private companies hard, with Zhipu and MiniMax losing over $150 billion since their peaks. Retail investors' equity is now less accessible for financing the boom. Private capital from firms like CATL and Tencent can secure funding without relying on share prices. Industrial and state capital remains unaffected by this crash.

US Government's Concerns

Meta has about $454.5 billion in non-cancelable commitments, making it difficult to justify these commitments given free or cheap AI models from China. Kimi K3 threatens the American AI revolution, as seen by Axios stating that it jeopardizes the foundation of the American AI revolution.

Next Steps

Both Zhipu and MiniMax's shares will be unlocked in January. DeepSeek and Moonshot are preparing for listings. The US government is considering imposing restrictions on tech equipment, which has already impacted optical firms like Innolight and Eoptolink. These listings will indicate the severity of the crash.