The AI Stack Tracker

Assessing how the US stacks up against China across each layer of the modern AI value chain.

Last Updated: January 2026

Frontier AI Supply Chain

The AI supply chain is a complex web of interdependencies. Click on any layer to explore the competitive dynamics between the US and China.

1 Downstream Raw Materials & Energy
Critical Minerals
Critical Minerals
Raw inputs for all physical layers — silicon, rare earths, gallium, cobalt
5
Power Infrastructure
Power Infrastructure
Powers fabs, data centers, and cooling — grid, renewables, nuclear
6
Materials & energy flow into chip manufacturing
2 Midstream Semiconductors
Semiconductor Equipment
Semiconductor Equipment
EUV, deposition, etch, metrology — the machines that make chips
4
Fabrication
Fabrication
TSMC ~90% of leading-edge logic — $20-40B per fab
4
Advanced Packaging
Advanced Packaging
CoWoS, EMIB, 3D stacking — assembles dies with HBM
2
Memory
Memory
HBM bandwidth often the binding constraint — SK Hynix, Samsung, Micron
2
AI Accelerators
AI Accelerators
~60% of AI data center capex — GPUs, TPUs, ASICs
4
Chips & accelerators assembled into compute infrastructure
3 Late-Stream Infrastructure & Inputs
AI Factory
AI Factory
Purpose-built for training at scale — liquid cooling, InfiniBand
4
Platform
Platform
Abstracts hardware into APIs — AWS, Azure, GCP, CoreWeave
4
Curated Data
Curated Data
Data quality is the primary capability driver — datasets, labels, synthetic
4
TA
Talent
Scarcest resource in the stack — researchers, engineers, operators
5
Compute, data, and talent enable model training & deployment
4 Endstream Intelligence
Frontier Model
Frontier Model
Core intelligence output — GPT, Claude, Gemini, Llama
3
AI Applications & Products
AI Applications & Products
Delivers AI to end users — chatbots, copilots, enterprise
3
Testing and Safety Science
Testing and Safety Science
Governs models & applications — alignment, red-teaming, evals
2
Cross-cutting: governs models & applications

State of the Stack

Overall competitive assessment across all layers of the AI supply chain.

11
Layers Led by US & Allies
3
Layers Led by China

The United States and its allies maintain a commanding lead across most layers of the AI supply chain, particularly in semiconductor manufacturing equipment, fabrication, and AI accelerator production. China holds advantages in critical mineral refinement and power infrastructure, foundational inputs that could become increasingly important as AI scaling continues.

Export controls have successfully limited China's access to cutting-edge chips, but the gap at the frontier model layer is narrowing. The race is not over.

Contributors & Reviewers

To Be Added

This tracker is maintained by an independent research team. If you'd like to contribute data, analysis, or feedback, please reach out.

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