Opinion | Where US jealously guards tech, China offers a collaborative ecosystem
US firms see talent as a moat to be captured and defended but China treats talent as an asset to be distributed across strategic domains
Windsurf was a rising artificial intelligence (AI) start-up – until it wasn’t. Days after OpenAI’s US$3 billion acquisition deal collapsed, Windsurf’s founders and top researchers joined Google DeepMind under a non-exclusive licensing agreement. What remained was sold to another company. Windsurf, as an independent innovator, ceased to exist.
This is how many AI start-ups today end. Not through product failure but talent extraction. Big Tech no longer needs to buy companies to consolidate power – it only needs the talent core.
It’s M&A – mergers and acquisitions – without the A: “acquihires” in the age of antitrust concerns. It’s talent consolidation at the corporate level.
But at the national level, China is executing something broader: a kind of national-level acquihire. It is not just absorbing talent – it is absorbing disciplines.