China Leads Global AI Race but Lags in Trust, Poll Finds
- tech360.tv
- Jun 17
- 2 min read
Chinese artificial intelligence models are leading the global technology race, even in key US allied countries, according to a new poll by London-based consultancy Public First. However, the survey also revealed that China lags significantly in trust regarding its AI models.
The poll, which covered more than 18,000 people across 15 countries, found that respondents from 11 nations acknowledged China’s AI leadership. These included Canada, Britain, and France, where over 40% of those polled deemed China to be outpacing the US in AI capability and innovation.
Germany was the least convinced of US leadership in AI, with only 23% of respondents stating the US was ahead. Among Americans surveyed, 24% said China was ahead of the US, while 51% stated the opposite.
Despite perceived leadership, US AI models were considered more trustworthy than those developed in China. When measuring "net trust" – subtracting the percentage of distrust from that of trust – Japan ranked highest with a +22 score, followed by the US at +16. China placed tenth with a negative value of -8.
More than 90% of respondents believe AI will transform the world; 46% felt it had already done so, and 45% believed it would do so in the future. Nevertheless, most respondents expressed fears due to the drastic changes AI is bringing about.
The company stated that the results showed "clear support from a majority in nearly every country for a pause on AI development." Public First has no connection with Anthropic-backed Public First Action and did not conduct its poll in China.
China continues to advance its "AI Plus" strategy, which seeks to integrate the cutting-edge technology across manufacturing, agriculture, and services. Domestic companies are also rolling out new models that compete with their US rivals on global benchmarks.
Alibaba Group Holding’s Qwen3.7-Max placed eighth, and Zhipu AI’s GLM-5.1 was ninth on the Code Arena ranking for front-end web development tasks. These are the only non-Anthropic models among the top 10 on the platform.
Code Arena is a subset of Arena, formerly known as LMArena, created by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, to evaluate AI performance. Beijing-based Zhipu recently launched its GLM-5.2, offering a more affordable alternative to Western models. It is priced at roughly a tenth of Anthropic’s premium Claude Code and Claude Max tiers. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
China's AI models are perceived as leading the global technology race by many countries.
A significant trust deficit exists for Chinese AI models compared to US and Japanese counterparts.
Most people believe AI will transform the world, with a majority supporting a pause on AI development.
Source: SCMP
