America's lead in advanced AI may be worth far less than assumed, because China is positioned to simply take whatever the US builds — bad news for anyone betting on a durable American edge.

• China is said to already have spies inside OpenAI and Anthropic.
• Hacking gives it the option to lift US progress at any moment, so a bigger lead doesn't mean a safer one.
• If the US paused its own work, China would keep pushing to catch up anyway.
• That makes any deal on limiting superintelligence hinge on whether it can actually be verified.

Outlook: Expect the AI race to be argued less around who builds fastest and more around securing labs against theft.