Trump administration's AI crackdown opens door for China to close gap

The Trump administration's restrictions on U.S. AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are slowing their development, while Chinese AI companies like Zhipu are rapidly closing the gap with competitive models that cost less to run. According to researchers and industry experts, Zhipu's GLM 5.2 model now matches or beats some top U.S. AI models on certain benchmarks, suggesting that export controls intended to protect American AI leadership may inadvertently be helping China catch up.