Just to add a bit to your comment, which was in response to a comment regarding China.

From a Foreign Affairs article by Dan Wang & Arthur Kroeber; "The Real China Model". First, a few facts.
Over the past 30 years China :
Has built a national express network twice the length of America's interstate system.
A high speed train network with more miles of track than the rest of the world combined.
A network of modern ports. The largest, Shanghai, moves more cargo in some years than al U.S. ports put together.
(the biggie)China generates more electricity each year than the U.S. and the EU combined. (a modern electric grid with lots of battery storage capability)
In 2024 China made75% of EVs, had 40% of EV exports, and a lock on the solar power supply chain.

To summarize a few points from a 14 page article.
With an industrial policy they have created the deep infrastructure required to become a resilient technological powerhouse.
A massive trained, experienced workforce that now has advanced manufacturing knowledge.
Powerful electricity and digital networks. Which now. along with 70 million managers, engineers, and workers with decades of process knowledge, is a motor of industrial innovation
The U.S. can't compete because it lacks the infrastructure that China has.
U.S. leadership has attempted to use tools such as export controls etc. to halt/slow China's momentum. A massive mistake. "They are sending lawyers into an engineering fight."

My takes:
the USA will fall behind in AI due to the simple fact that we lack the ability to generate the electrical power it requires. (plus ever increasing power supply diverted to mine cryptocurrency)
One thing China IS NOT investing in is cryptocurrency. They are not pouring financial resources into 'pet rocks'.
Another thing is they have, so far, managed to avoid having a financial sector call the shots. Finance and financing is used to provide capital for tangible reality.
A financial sector economy becomes a house of cards. (In the USA, currently finance mostly finances finance). It creates psuedo purchasing power and prevents our grasping the reality of the economy.

China recognizes that the underlying cause of manufacturing downturns and financial crises is increasing scarcity, lower quality, and much more cost of the 58 critical resources required by industrial civilization. They are using these nonrecurring natural resources as quickly as possible to build their infrastructure prior to other countries getting them.
It will put them in charge once other nations realize that the increased pressures from resource depletion have priced them out of the market of physical reality. Leaving them to play with financial gimmicks, clever computer games and monopoly money.