"Chinese AI Models Cannot Defeat U.S. Big Tech"...Goldman Sachs Forecast

Goldman Sachs Executive Rick Sheridan Comments

"U.S. Maintains Leadership in Advanced Technology and High Value-Added Sectors"

There are forecasts that major U.S. big tech companies will overcome the challenge of low-cost open-source artificial intelligence (AI) models from China by reducing token costs through large-scale investments.

According to Yonhap News on May 19, citing the Hong Kong South China Morning Post (SCMP), a Goldman Sachs executive made this statement. Rick Sheridan, Co-Head of Technology, Media, and Telecom Research at Goldman Sachs, predicted that infrastructure investments will lower token costs and stimulate demand for agent AI, enabling U.S. big tech companies to win the competition against China’s low-cost open-source AI models.

AI. (This photo is not directly related to the article.) Pixabay Pixabay

Sheridan has consistently maintained the strongest optimism regarding AI investments within Goldman Sachs.

At the Goldman Sachs Asia Technology Conference held in Hong Kong on May 18, Sheridan stated, “The U.S. AI industry is currently not in a bubble but at a significant ‘inflection point.’” He said, “The emergence of agent-type AI with economic productivity is prompting unprecedented capital expenditures on key infrastructure such as data centers and semiconductors.”

He further explained, “The emergence of agent-type AI with economic productivity is leading to unprecedented capital spending on key infrastructure such as data centers and semiconductors.” He added, “There is a considerable gap between computing demand and available capacity, and I believe this imbalance will not be resolved even by the second half of 2027.”

Chinese AI Startup DeepSeek. The Asia Business Daily DB

He acknowledged that China has an advantage over the United States in terms of energy supply, which is a core factor in training and operating AI models. However, he assessed that U.S. companies still maintain leadership in the most economically valuable segments of advanced technology and the enterprise market.

Sheridan said, “I have not yet seen Chinese open-source large models spreading on a massive scale in Western markets.” He went on to explain, “Wall Street’s concerns about the influence of Chinese models were concentrated around the time of the ‘DeepSeek shock’ early last year. However, as the performance of U.S. models has since improved further and the related companies’ revenues have increased more rapidly than their global competitors, these concerns have subsided.”

He continued, “The pace of technological change is so fast that even Wall Street is struggling with forecasts, and Goldman Sachs is experimenting with using its own AI agents to enhance its analysts’ industry forecasting capabilities.” He added, “During times of extreme technological change, simply keeping up with innovation itself is a major challenge.”

SCMP reported that in a recent report, Sheridan projected that enterprise demand will cause global AI token consumption to surge 24-fold by 2030 and 55-fold by 2040.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.