Measuring China’s AI Diffusion Velocity Lead Over the US

Overview

This report introduces the original 4A AI Diffusion Framework to measure how AI progresses from access to measurable economic advantage. It evaluates China's AI diffusion velocity against the US, analyzes each stage of the diffusion chain, and examines the structural factors driving AI deployment, adoption and value creation.

Why This Report Matters

As the AI race shifts beyond frontier model performance, diffusion is becoming an equally important measure of competitive advantage. This report provides a new framework for assessing how effectively economies convert AI capabilities into widespread adoption, organizational integration and long-term economic value.

Author

Wei Sun

Wei is a Principal Analyst in Artificial Intelligence at Counterpoint. She is also the China founder of Humanity+, an international non-profit organization which advocates the ethical use of emerging technologies. She formerly served as a product manager of Embedded Industrial PC at Advantech. Before that she was an MBA consultant to Nuance Communications where her team successfully developed and launched Nuance’s first B2C voice recognition app on iPhone (later became Siri). Wei’s early years in the industry were spent in IDC’s Massachusetts headquarters and The World Bank’s DC headquarters.