The American and Chinese AI programs represent a clash of systems. 

Thomas Kolbe | June 11, 2026

While the boom in artificial intelligence is largely passing Germany and the EU by, the race between the United States and China is accelerating. China’s political leadership has recently presented a new national strategy to expand data center capacity. We are witnessing a clash of systems.

Artificial intelligence has acquired a poor reputation in Germany within a very short time. In public discourse, skepticism dominates. It is not its benefits that are at the center of debate, but fears of loss of control. The productivity gains associated with AI are acknowledged, but are simultaneously framed as risks -- above all for the labor market.

At the same time, entirely legitimate concerns over data security hover like the sword of Damocles over energy-hungry data centers, which inevitably face strong resistance in a country committed to degrowth and artificial energy scarcity.

In the end, a simple question emerges: do we heat our homes in winter, can we use washing machines and dishwashers flexibly -- or does the neighboring data center operator run the largest energy consumer in the neighborhood around the clock, while also supplying sanctionable information about each of us to the surveillance state?

In China and the United States, the two geopolitical and economic superpowers of our time,........

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