Ex-OpenAI's Jun Song: US AI Technical Moats Are Collapsing One by One
kevinnbass · x · 2026-08-02
Former OpenAI researcher Jun Song argues that the technical moats of the US AI industry are rapidly collapsing. While many consider compute to be the primary moat, he asserts that the true historical advantage was the overwhelming volume of data accumulated over decades.
Chinese AI companies have successfully narrowed this gap through data distillation, purchasing data, and ultimately surpassing the US in data curation technology. Citing GLM-5.2 as an example, he notes that superior data curation enables smaller models to match the performance of giant US models. He warns that if the US continues internal hindrances like the 'decel movement,' they risk losing their remaining advantage in Nvidia chips.
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