President Trump and his delegation of business and tech leaders were greeted by President Xi in a lavish ceremony that included a spartan military and honor guard so precise and disciplined, it was the perfect metaphor for China’s state-driven AI strategy.

As you’ll see in today’s RCRTech coverage of strengths and weaknesses, China is trying to shift the AI race from a battle of raw compute to one of precision execution. While the United States still has a clear lead in advanced GPUs and training frontier models, China’s state-directed and funded penchant for industrial scaling is leading to open-source ecosystems and labs that are succeeding to undercut U.S. competitors and win over developers with low-cost or free models.

That said, U.S. tech is outspending the Chinese by 10:1, and continuing to dominate in GPUs and frontier models. That is pushing China to shift toward a more software-based, 90%-10% open-source approach that is less brute force and more finesse.

Read more about the duopoly that is emerging, here, and check out the “top stories,” below, as well as more of today’s AI news in “What you need to know.”

Cisco Universal Quantum Switch: Quantum computing is not yet mainstream, but Cisco is aiming to address the fact quantum computers don’t generate enough qubits to address the class of complex problems they’re supposed to solve.

AI-enablement drives Telus revenue: Telus CEO Darren Entwistle told investors AI enablement drove revenue growth of 22% in Q1 2026, bolstered by plans to work with the Canadian government on large-scale sovereign AI data centers.

5G, fiber for physical AI at the edge: Vodafone used its FY26 earnings call to outline how AI will reshape telecom networks and operations, reporting stronger revenues, improved profits, robust African growth, and U.K. broadband momentum. 

Anthropic’s Mythos security holes: U.S. banks are rushing to fix scores of IT system weaknesses flagged by Anthropic’s Mythos AI tool, prompting urgent repairs, software upgrades and raising the possibility of ​disruption for customers.

Anduril raises $5 billion: Defense start-up Anduril’s valuation doubled to $61 billion, with AI-backed weapons becoming a focus for “modernizing” the U.S. military. Investors like Andreessen Horowitz and Thrive Capital helped Anduril raise $6.82 billion in 8 rounds.