Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt warns China is just six months behind the US in AI.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has warned that China is now only about six months behind the United States in the race to develop artificial intelligence, a much narrower gap than he believed existed as recently as a year or two ago.

In an interview released on Wednesday, Schmidt said China’s progress had accelerated despite US efforts to limit its access to advanced computer chips. “A year or two ago, it looked like China was a year or two behind. Now it looks like they’re six months behind, and there are many studies that show this,” he said.

Schmidt, who helped argue for restrictions on chip exports to China, said he had once expected those limits to hold back Chinese AI development for roughly a decade. Instead, he said, Chinese engineers have managed to build competitive systems while using far less computing power and energy.

He said the US still benefits from advantages in high-end chips, skilled workers and capital. But he argued that China is better placed to construct the physical infrastructure needed for the next phase of AI growth, particularly power supplies and data centres.

“China has infinite energy, most of it renewable, something we said we were going to do in our country 10 years ago and failed to do,” Schmidt said. He contrasted China’s rapid construction of data centres and electricity infrastructure with the long delays US developers face when trying to connect new facilities to the grid.

“They don’t have interconnection queue waits that go on seven years. They don’t have the same kind of debates. They’re building the data centers, and they’re building them massively,” he said. Schmidt estimated that the US will need between 60 gigawatts and 80 gigawatts of power by 2030 or 2031 to meet AI demand, with each gigawatt costing about $50 billion.

“What we don’t have is the energy, and we don’t have the data centers,” he said. His comments come as the fast growth of AI data centres draws increasing attention over electricity costs and strain on local water supplies.

Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Van Hollen released a report earlier this month examining how data centres could push up costs. Scrutiny of the sector could increase if Democrats regain control of Congress in November, with lawmakers indicating they may seek tougher AI safety rules and investigations into major technology companies.