China is eclipsing the United States as the perceived artificial intelligence superpower across much of the world, according to a new global poll conducted by U.K.-based research firm Public First that surveyed over 18,000 people across 15 countries. The findings raise urgent questions about American competitiveness in a technology sector President Donald Trump has identified as central to global dominance.
The survey reveals a striking divergence in international perception. Just over half of American respondents, along with majorities in Japan, India and Vietnam, still view the U.S. as the dominant AI superpower. However, respondents in 11 other countries—including close U.S. allies France, Canada and the United Kingdom—see China as the leader. In Germany, only 23 percent of people saw the U.S. as dominant, highlighting a significant credibility gap among key Western partners.
The Competitiveness Challenge
President Donald Trump stated Wednesday, "We are leading China by a lot. Whoever leads that is going to really lead the world, to a large extent." Yet the polling data suggests the perception gap may reflect real competitive pressures. Former White House AI czar David Sacks has cautioned against regulatory approaches that could undermine American innovation velocity. Speaking on Fox Business last week, Sacks warned: "If you try to have an FDA for AI and there are some people who want to go that far, then I think we could lose this AI race to China."
The concern centers on whether excessive regulatory frameworks—such as a clearance process for cutting-edge models mirroring the Food and Drug Administration's drug-review protocol—could slow American development while competitors operate under fewer constraints. This regulatory-speed tradeoff represents a fundamental policy tension as policymakers balance innovation with oversight.
Declining Public Confidence in AI Benefits
Beyond geopolitical positioning, the survey uncovered a troubling three-year trend in American attitudes toward AI's societal impact. In 2024, 39 percent of U.S. survey participants believed AI would make things better for society while 34 percent said it would make things worse. By this year, those numbers had shifted dramatically: only 31 percent believed AI would make society better, while 40 percent took the opposite outlook.
Personal optimism has eroded even more sharply. Confidence that AI will improve respondents' own lives fell from a net positive 15 points in 2024 to just 5 points this year. Prospects for the next generation deteriorated from a net positive 10 points to a net negative 4 points, suggesting deepening intergenerational anxiety about technological disruption.
The pessimism is most pronounced among young Americans. Respondents aged 18 to 24 believed in 2025 that AI would improve society by a 4-point margin, but a year later that sentiment had reversed sharply, with young Americans now believing AI would be worse for society by a 13-point margin. Young respondents in the United Kingdom mirrored those results. By contrast, in countries including Singapore and India, there was widespread and persistent belief that AI would positively impact society.
Specific Concerns Driving Skepticism
In the United States, three concerns dominate public anxiety: misinformation, deepfakes, and job displacement. Social media companies have been grappling with the scale of AI-generated content proliferation. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said about eight months ago on an October earnings call: "Social media has gone through two eras so far. First was when all content was from friends, family, and accounts that you followed directly. The second was when we added all the creator content. Now, as AI makes it easier to create and remix content, we're going to add yet another huge corpus of content on top of those."
Labor market concerns reflect warnings from industry leaders themselves. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has warned that AI will be able to eliminate half of entry-level, white-collar jobs in the next one to five years. Young adults viewing the employment landscape with anxiety have legitimate grounds for concern, given such predictions from those closest to the technology's development.
Energy and Infrastructure Backlash
Fears about resource consumption have surged dramatically. In 2024, 52 percent of respondents worried about AI's electricity consumption. By 2026, that figure rose to two of every three respondents. This represents a 27-percentage-point increase in resource-use anxiety in just two years.
Local communities are pushing back against data center development, which consumes massive amounts of electricity and relies on water-based cooling systems. In one Missouri town, half of the city council was voted out after approving a $6 billion data center. A week after a rezoning plan was approved in Indianapolis to accommodate a data center developer's project, a councilman reported his home was shot at, with a note reading "NO DATA CENTERS" left on his front porch.
In response to mounting ratepayer concerns, about three months ago President Trump issued a "ratepayer protection pledge" asking major technology companies to provide or pay for their own electricity supplies as they rapidly establish computing hubs across the country. The pledge represents an attempt to shift infrastructure costs away from public utility systems and onto private enterprise, addressing a growing political vulnerability for both technology companies and elected officials.
Why This Matters:
The survey findings present a multi-layered challenge to American technological and economic leadership. First, the perception gap with allied nations suggests a credibility problem that could affect cooperation on AI governance and standards-setting. Second, declining domestic confidence in AI's benefits—particularly among young Americans—may constrain the political sustainability of policies favoring rapid innovation and investment. Third, the tension between regulatory caution and competitive speed creates a genuine policy dilemma: excessive oversight could cede leadership to China, but unmanaged deployment risks social backlash that could ultimately demand more restrictive intervention. Fourth, the data center backlash demonstrates that infrastructure externalities—energy costs borne by communities—can become politically explosive, potentially forcing companies and government to renegotiate the terms of technological expansion. Finally, the divergence between American and global perceptions of U.S. AI leadership raises questions about whether America can maintain technological dominance while managing domestic concerns about job displacement and resource consumption.